The Media Supermarket

Search engines can easily read and process text, although not in natural language yet. They actually “love” text because it can easily help them make sense of the pages they are crawling. The challenge with images and videos is that search engines cannot “read” them, yet.
They rely on the tags, descriptions, and the title of the page to categorize and index images and videos.
A good idea to help search engines understand these media better is to encourage users to describe, instead of comment on them. The typical comments to a video are; “nice”, “cool”, “very bad” etc… Nothing descriptive of the image or video.
Implementing this would give you two main advantages:

1. Better indexing for your pages: since your page will be full of relevant keywords that actually describe your content, the search engines will find it much easier. This is especially beneficial for sites with huge content, in leveraging a very long tail of keywords. Someone looking for “dog with green shirt” will definitely land on your page if a user described it this way. Moreover, the user will be happy to have found exactly what he is looking for.

2. Rich user experience: having a synopsis of a video, or a creative description for an image will help the viewer in recognizing certain things they would have not recognized otherwise. A new angle, or a special detail would give the content a new perspective. This would especially helpful with videos, since many times you wait several minutes hoping it is the content you are looking for, and then discover it is not. This way users are prepared for what they will watch.

Implementation

It is not as easy as it sounds (I have yet to test it and see for myself) especially if you have users already user to just drop simple comments.

A good idea might be to introduce descriptions with (and eventually replace) comments. Users who don’t want to write descriptions can vote for each description. This way, the best description rises in position and gives new users the best description available.

The level of interaction with the content goes up when people try to describe, instead of just venting their impressions. The number of people participating will definitely be less, because naturally, it is more difficult to describe than to just comment. I think it is a risk worthy of taking, to improve the way people use your service and to differentiate it among competitors.

Google finally decided to share the volume data of the search queries that they receive. This is too good to be true for someone like me living on these numbers. Now you can see the number of searches conducted per keyword, instead of the relative volume that was given previously, and was only segmented in five main segments.
It is generally estimated that 80% of all internet traffic starts at a search engine. And since Google accounts for almost 80% of search engine traffic, this is quite a good estimate for the market per keyword. This means you have a fair idea about 64% of the total market.
This marks a new era in market research and how scientific you can be in estimating your market size, and how much of it you are getting.Moreover, “market” is no longer a set of people with generalized demographics. It can now be measured by the number of people who are interested in a concept (or group of concepts) as specific as you define it.
I tried the service once, but then it seems it crashed, I’m sure a huge number of people is trying it. I’ll test it more extensively and compare with actual traffic figures that I have to see how best to use it.

The term sounds quite sophisticated. It is. And it’s nice to see people puzzled not knowing what the hell this is. But after you cut through the CTR, impressions, clicks, ad copy, and the technical issues, you end up like a traditional merchant in front of a salesman (been there before - the salesman that is). You would be evaluating each product, how much sales it might generate and how much profit margin it can get you. This is how it is in CPC affiliate marketing. You have to start thinking like a store keeper, except without the store, and without the merchandise, and the good news is, you only pay for sending people to the store. If you succeed in sending the right pople, you can start earning commissions on that.
I never thought of myself becoming a store keeper or merchant, but this was a strange discovery for me.
But this seems like a great store. There are no cases to deal with, and you can shift products, brands, or even industries, within seconds. You can also sell a wide range of unrelated items in your online conglomorate.
The fun part for me is in figuring out the right keywords, and testing different ad texts and seeing how they affect users’ behavior. It is really fascinating every time I think about it; here I am (wherever I am, logged in my account) thinking about what attract people more. At several other points in the world, there are people searching for certain keywords, I somehow manage to get a part of them, to be directed to my products, and buy it. They come and go, get their products shipped while I’m somewhere else doing somethig else.
I like this store!

they should be asked the golden question, “Would you like to PLAY or to WATCH sports today?”

It took Google some time to figure out how to make money with their innovative search algorithm. When they figured it out it was one hell of a model. Although they didn’t invent search advertising, but they are the ones the most famous for superbly helping advertisers, and later on publishers to make great profits.
One of the biggest challenges in advertising is reaching your message to the right audience at the right time, which is something quite difficult to achieve with the traditional advertising methods. With AdWords, your ad appears next to search results exactly when people are interested in what you have to sell.
Some of the things that make it a great system, is that there is no fixed price for ad placement, and you don’t have to negotiate for prices (you can’t even if you wanted). The self-regulating system makes you pay only when people click on your ad and visit your website, so you only pay for visitors coming to your site.
The really cool thing is how the pricing is determined. First you decide the maximum amount of money you are ready to pay for a click, and they never charge you more than that amount. Second, Google’s discounter makes sure to let you pay less than the maximum amount you are willing to pay, thus rewarding good and relevant advertising instead of just deep pockets.
Here is the main advantage for advertisers who have relevant interesting stuff to perform better than their high-budget counter parts.
What’s more is that if your ads don’t achieve a certain click-through ratio they will stop showing since this means that they are not relevant for searchers. How many companies will not allow you to advertise because you are not creating good enough stuff?!
What makes AdWords resemble a perfect market, is that prices are determined naturally, and vary according to the hidden forces of supply and demand. More importantly the most adaptive and relevant advertiser wins at the end, and not the most powerful.
Strict editorial rules are applied to acceptable ads. They give a first impression of a tough system, but a second look proves that these standards are for the advertiser’s benefit.
For example, the use of superlatives is prohibited, you cannot say the word “best” in your ad copy. This only shows that you are boasting and it doesn’t actually convey information for the readers. “Award-winning” on the other hand is acceptable and allows the reader to decide for themselves whether or not to trust your ad.
Another example is prohibiting advertisers from using the exclamation mark more than once in each ad, and it is not accepted in the headline of the ad. Studies show that using the exclamation mark in real estate ads, gives the impression that the house on sale is not as valuable as the seller is claiming. “Why is he stressing the facts so strongly, I can read the information myself!”
A new feature was recently launched allows advertisers to use AdWords for market research. The search queries report gives you a list of all the queries that have triggered your ads, and got you clicks. Two main benefits of this; first, you get to know what keywords are triggering your ads (when you set your keywords to broad match, related words can also trigger your ads to show). Second, you get to know what people are really looking for, and what percentage of them is looking for a certain keyword(s), or product.
I have used this tool with on account, and got more than 900,000 queries after spending around $5,000 for the website I was working on. This is a huge number and the insights it gave us were invaluable.

One of our local radio stations is providing its listeners with the option of recording their voice for special song dedications. One of the listeners, actually speakers now, has turned this into a real offline Web 2.0 application.
Most of the people recording their dedications just do that, they say to whom they would like to dedicate this song, and how much they love that person, blah blah blah.
One of these people took this service to a really new level. She started recording certain messages to certain people. Talking to one of her friends, she would wish him a safe trip to his destination, and wish that he accomplishes the goal of that trip. To another friend of hers, she would apologize for the things that she said yesterday and ask for forgiveness. She would have two friends who are not really understanding of each other’s differences, and talk to both and try to find a compromise or a midway where they can communicate again together.
All this is done publicly, and all listeners would listen to this. It is becoming more like an interesting series of stories related to this one person, who they have never met, but started to know and identify with!
Next? She became a star! Other listeners who are familiar with her messages started recording their own messages just thanking her and complementing her on how great a job she is doing to get friends closer to each other!
One person decided to use the platform her own way, she used it for her own interest. She became famous, others start to complement her, and eventually new ways of using this recording service will be used by other people.
The radio station is only providing the context for people to record and publish their messages (and they get paid for each sound recording). The users are finding creative ways of using it, and since they are given the chance to publish their voice, they are doing the word-of-mouth advertising for the service since it makes them famous.
This is a really great example of how any application can be utilized in a context where the users can find ways to actively participate in the creation of content, and they will definitely do the marketing for that service or experience provided.

While thinking about the different applications Web 2.0 is bringing us, I have been also thinking about how this might be implemented offline, in media that are not based on the Web, and more importantly, applications where the media are not involved at all.
The main aspects, or components that make any application a Web 2.0 application are user-generated content, community empowerment (where the community decides what is and what is not acceptable), and the service provider acts merely as a platform for these activities to happen. This platform is a passive aggregator of whatever the community chooses to produce, and works only on making the platform easier to use, more efficient and effective at realizing the goals of the users and the community, and finally, works on marketing that platform.
In other words, I like to think of Web 2.0 as a new phenomenon of doing business, community activities, and transforming any aspect of our lives and work.
An application I imagined was having a city without a police force. That was my opening example for my presentation on this topic, in an attempt to make it familiar to the audience, and to show them that it is not that technical or complicated, it’s just a really new way of doing things.
The police department of city X decides to empower its citizens by allowing them to photograph all the cars that are violating the law, and sending them via email to the department. The officers there will take a look at the photos, and if there is sufficient proof that the car is actually violating the law, a ticket will be issued, and sent to the car owner.

Why would anyone take photos?

I first thought that only people with nothing better to do than pick on other people’s mistakes would be engaged in such a thing. But I immediately remembered the frustration I feel when some people park in front of our parking and stop us from getting in or out of our own house. Sometimes, we are in a hurry, sometimes guests are coming, and it is really frustrating to have to deal with it. In such a moment, I will definitely pick up my mobile phone, take a picture of that car, and immediately send it for him to receive his ticket. The beautiful thing is that there are other people also living in the same street who are frustrated with this, and probably one of us will take the picture.
A basic principle of Web 2.0, is that people engage in it for their self-interest. I would really be interested in doing this for our street, and might do it here and there occasionally, but I’m sure the people living there will make sure nobody intrudes. Since everyone will be using the system to protect their own street, almost all streets will be protected this way.

What benefits does it have for the police department?

This method provides much greater coverage for the department. Police officers cannot be everywhere all the time, and people will eventually learn that to take care of their neighborhood, they have the means for that, and they should do it. There will also be a lot more understanding and cooperation with normal citizens who will have the chance to be police officers whenever they need to be! This eliminates the ”us vs. them” attitude, and transforms the community into a whole big ”us” where ”they” would be the ones breaking the law in a certain instance.
Eventually, when this becomes the norm in a certain society, policemen will be less needed to waste their time writing tickets, and can focus more on more important and deeper aspects of their work, like focusing on combatting organized crime, and training for more sophisticated skills.   

How does it benefit the society?

Just like society makes sure the social and ethical norms are being taken care of, again through their pursuit of self-interest, this circle will be expanded to included new areas never tackled before, it should also foster a new sense of cooperation and responsibiliy among people toward increasingly more aspects of their lives.

How to implement?

The first thing is to make this system available while keeping everything the way it is. This provides a buffer, since you cannot know when exactly the use will be widespread in society. Therefore, you keep things going as they are, advertise for the new system, start mentioning instances where this has happened, warn law-breakers that Big Brother has become one of your own, and sit back and watch the photos coming!

most of them really know what they are talking about. This really contrasts to Seth Godin’s post on “pundits”. Makes you really think…

Just while I thought that The Long Tail would kill all forms of traditional media, Spotrunner has found ways of utilizing The Long Tail to resurrect this (dying?) medium.
It’s quite difficult to imagine how a company can provide a link between a huge number of medium to small (and they have big) advertisers, with highly localized TV networks and stations. But this is exactly what they are doing.
First, the cost of producing the TV ad (which is usually outrageously high) is considerably reduced by providing generic customizable templates. These are premaid ads for certain industries. If you, as an advertiser, see that they represent your business and are suitable for your campaign, they can customize the ad for you. This is done through adding a new voice-over, and inserting your contact information. There is also the option of adding certain images if needed. Advertiser would not want their ads to be shown by other advertisers, you may think. This is true, but when it is a localized ad, there is no problem in showing in another part of the country where audiences don’t watch the same networks.
Spotrunner can get you lower prices, because they usually go for the spots that are not sold, where the TV network can sell them at a low prices, sometimes as low as $18.
Network effects are the only that will improve this service. If a large-enough number of people start using it, and enriching the history of usage, this system should be great. A great suggestion by Mashable was to open up the video library for video producers, so they can participate with their video commercials. They will want to promote their work, and of course get paid for it, and Spotrunner will have free additions to its vast library.
If this is implemented well, it will open up new huge markets not only for amateurs with a good taste, but for professional film / commercial makers as well. The ultimate perfect state would be to become a platform for producers and consumers of TV ads where they can both login in a self service manner, and manage their work from. This would be wonderful to watch, and it would be a true Web 2.0 application, although most of it is not for the web, it will be a great model that uses web 2.0 by linking online and offline media together.
Spotrunner managed to attract some serious investors, and therefore a lot of media coverage (WPP and CBS among others). They also announced in October 2006 that they managed to attract $40 Million in investment. Looks really cool.

Establishing your website, and securing an excellent web presence, is not only becoming a must, it’s becoming really easy, and dirt cheap. The speed at which prices are going down, while features are increasing makes me really wonder how these companies make any money. Although it is becoming a highly sophisticated industry, I believe we should all have the basic knowledge and actually create our site(s) as an extension of our work/personality.
While researching for the best webhosting companies available, I have found one that offers great services and options at very low prices, and flexibility. Bluehost is one of the top rated hosting service providers, and they have great features that can really help one grow their business online, and probably take that hobby one or two steps further. Here are the main features:

Unlimited domains in one account: Many hosting companies will provide you with a certain number of domain names per account. Some of them even limit you to only one. There is no meaning having so much storage space if you have only three sites. Moreover, many companies charge you a setup fee for activating your sites. With Bluehost, you have as many sites as you want.
The value in this feature is that it gives you the freedom to be experimentatl in your approach to building your sites, if it only costs you $10 to start a new site, why not try out that idea you had in your mind? You can also manage these sites through one login.
This can be taken one step further, and you can start selling your services to manage other sites.

Live chat: I’ve tried their live chat system, and it’s good to be able to ask a question on the go, and have your immediate answer.

Huge data transfer: 3,000 GB of data transfer, or bandwidth, is really a huge amount. Judging by the fact that you can use third parties to host your images and videos, like Youtube and Flickr, you will practically not reach that limit, unless you have a very high-traffic portal.

A lot of storage space: 300 GB of storage is quite impressive. Very few websites use that much of disk space on their servers.

Awards: If you want to check out their quality, you can see their awards page. By the way, they claim to have around 285,000 domains hosted. I guess these customers are happy with the service.

$50 Yahoo! and $25 Google advertising credits: These are given for new accounts. If you use this advertising to get some traffic to your site, you can easily get back your investment if you have products to sell, or affiliate programs on your site.

Pricing: $6.95 per month for 24 month accounts and $7.95 per month for 12 month accounts. You don’t pay anything other than the domain name price which is $10 annually. As I mentioned many companies charge around $25 - 30 just for setup.

Free privacy: Again this is a feature offered for free. This is the option of keeping your information private, and not having to deal with spammers.
Try them.