Blog Ryan

It has been quite a while since I’ve done a Ryan’s Radar. I was gone at Affiliate Summit for most of last week and have been trying to get caught up since I’ve been back. Affiliate Summit was excellent. You can read my recap at Super Affiliate Marketing. Like always there is a lot going on so I’ll try and captures a few highlights:

• How to measure ROI from Social Media: [Flashpoint] Ian Kennedy shows a graphic from a Forrester Research report that Steve Rubel discussed that shows how to measure Return on Investment from social media in general and blogging specifically…nothing groundbreaking here, but a good summary of how to measure the investment of blogging.
• Apple is ordered to pay $700,000 for bloggers legal fees. [Robert Scoble] Serves them right. Apple is ordered to pay for the legal fees of a blogger that they went after. The fact that the blogger racked up $700 grand in legal fees is the scary part to me. This underscores the importance of understanding the legal ramifications of blogging (which I don’t pretend to understand) and Scoble references the need to have some sort of legal group to help bloggers out. I’d pay a small fee to have access to that on the off hand chance some mega corporation came after me.
  Ask a Ninja signs big advertising deal with Federated Media. [Robert Scoble] Scoble points out that video blogging is starting to take off.
• Yahoo Adds Link Badge [Search Engine Land] Barry points out that Yahoo has added the ability to add a badge displaying the number of links that Yahoo show to a given page or site. Nice move by Yahoo. Makes them seem a little more friendly to the SEO world by offering an accurate count (**cough** Google?) of links and makes them feel more socially oriented, which I believe they are positioning themselves for anyway.
• SEMPO Institute is Live [Web Analytics World] SEMPO has officially opened the doors to training in SEO. There will initially be a high level course on SEO broken into 14 lessons. It will cost $499. Eventually there will be an advanced training offered. It will be interesting to monitor this to see the perceived value by those who have taken part.
• YouTube Offers Revenue Share from Ads [Tech Crunch] Many people are talking about the impact the YouTube announcement will have. Now that they will be sharing revenue with content producers the gap between them and their competition has widened significantly.
• Using YouTube to Drive Traffic [Web Log Hits] James Thomson and Muhammed Saleem seperately discuss using YouTube to Drive traffic to your website. Very interesting read regardless if you’ve used YouTube as a promotional tactic in the past.

• New Google AdSense Policies: [JenSense] This has got some people up in arms and is being discussed here, here, and here among other places. Google is playing the role of the playground bully. Basically Google is saying if you use AdSense you can’t display contextual ads from any of our competitors. Other updates put scraper sites on watch.
• 302 or 301?: [Multiple Sources] Always a popular debate. SEO Rountable revisits an article by Scottie Clairborne suggesting that a temporary redirect was the way to go until the new site starts to achiever rankings. SEO Rountable brings in some good articles and opinions to suggest that might not be the best thing to do today. I would do a 301 instead of a 302 personally, but Jill Whalen at High Rankings would disagree with me.
• More Adwords Quality Score Stupidity [Michael Gray] Michael uses the example of having to bid a minimum of $0.20 for his own name as yet another example of how random the Quality Score is for AdWords. I’ve come across the same problem in multiple campaigns of my own.
• Google checkout dwarfed by PayPal [JP Morgan]. Duh. Did we expect anything less? What I find amazing is Google checkout already has 6% of the market compared to 42% for PayPal. That is pretty remarkable considering the length of time in that particular niche. I think Google checkout stands to give them some real competition over time.
• The Tipping Point for OpenID [Jeremy Zawodny] Jeremy talks about this being the year to see if OpenID will thrive or dive.
• New SEO Blog [Search Trends] Dave Bascom introduces an SEO blog of one of his newest employees.

Sorry, just didn’t get to a post yesterday about the stories that caught my eye, so here are a few from today:

• Is Yahoo Heading for Certain Destruction?: [Wired] There is a lot of discussion from a number of great blogs discussing this article by Wired that talks about a number of missteps by Yahoo. Starting with the mistake of not acquiring Google when it had the chance. I personally am hoping that Yahoo turns it around so that Google has some real competition. It is just more healthy for the marketplace.
• Google, Yahoo gain market share, Microsoft, Ask, and AOL all down. [ComScore]: No big surprises there. The scary thing is Google is almost at the 50% mark in term of the US search market.
• Giving credit where credit is due: [ProBlogger & Tech Crunch] Good discussion in two separate articles discussing when you should link to other blogs. Is it appropriate to “cut out the middle man” an link directly to the source? Or should you link to the source where you got the original story as well?
• Bill Marriott is blogging: [Search Marketing Gurus] The CEO from the mammoth hotel chain is joining the blogging world. Pretty impressive so far. We’ll see where he falls in terms of those who get this new media, and those that don’t.
• North Carolina Desperately Trying to Lure Google: [Marketing Pilgrim] Looks like North Carolina will do anything to lure Google to the area including giving up $100 million in tax revenue to get them to build a server farm in the area.

Here we go. Stories that caught my eye over the last few days:

• What Happens When Corporations go 2.0? [Micro Persuasion]: Steve points out how someone took the logos of some of the world’s biggest companies and made them web 2.0. Cool stuff. I like the logos for Wal-Mart, Levi’s, Visa, and Pepsi.
• Napster Buys AOL Music [Tech Crunch]: Well, looks like Napster figures if they lose money faster they might be able to find someone to buy them out. Already losing more than $10 million a quarter, Napster lays our $15 million for AOL music. If you can’t make money, make it up on volume? I thought we proved this wrong when the first internet bubble burst.
• DMOZ comes back to life: [Various sources] Can’t stand DMOZ but they still factor into some things SEO. Several sources are reporting that DMOZ is trying to come back to life.
• Best SEM Conferences: [Online Marketing Blog] Lee Odden is starting a discussion on which SEM conferences are the best to attend. There are several conferences that I hadn’t even heard of. My favorite is Pubcon. I’m going to be at Affiliate Summit later this week for the first time so we’ll see how that goes. I’d like to hit a Search Engine Strategies in ‘07 as well.
• Sponsored Reviews to Launch Soon: [Various sources] Many people are reporting the impending launch of Sponsored Reviews. This paid review space seems to be getting more crowded. Positive reviews are coming out talking about this hybrid model launched by parent Text Link Brokers.
• PR Newswire Links Press Releases to Technorati: [David Sifry] Looks like PR newswire will be linking press releases to Technorati that will allow users to see the discussion surrounding a particular press release.

It’s cold this morning. Bone chilling cold. Butt cold. -32 C cold. That is -25.6 farenheit. That is cold. I don’t care who you are, that’s coooold. So despite the cold, there is still a fair bit on the radar today:

• What if Google made a Yahoo like start page: [Google Watch] Steve Bryant made a mockup of what Google could look like if they went for a Yahoo style portal look. I think it looks pretty good to be honest. I think if Google would give us the option right along the top of Google.com, Personalized Home, or Portal Home it would be nice. Anyway, I saw the post a couple days ago and dismissed the thought…but I’m liking the idea the more I think about it. Nice job Steve.
• Everyone’s Related: [Tech Crunch] Michael Arrington gives us the rundown on a new project by ex-PayPal exec David Sacks. He apparently is looking to create a family tree for the world. Sounds like an extremely ambitious project. Having done some genealogy before I think he has bitten off a pretty big bite this time around.
• A Few Last Lessons on Blogging: [Pro Blogger] Tony Hung has some great tips on what it takes to survive and thrive as a blogger. If you are interested in getting more involved in blogging (which I am) I’d suggest you read the post and look to implement some of his ideas. I know I will be.
• Google Radio Advertising Moves Forward: [Tech Crunch] Looks like Google is finalizing a deal with CBS that will deliver as much as 15% of their radio inventory. Google appears to be sweeting the deal with a payout to CBS regarding YouTube content.
• PowerReviews Takes on Amazon: [Read/WriteWeb] Nice profile on the attempt of PowerReviews to gain a mass database of user reviews. I like the idea.
• Attack of the mini-Googles: [CNN] Interesting look at some of the up-and-comers in the search space. I like the concept (don’t like the name) of Mobissimo. Not in love with the way results are displayed, but I like the idea.
  Minus 950 Penalty: [SEO Roundtable]. Here we go again. The beginnings of discussion of the alleged minus 950 penalty. Worth following. No need to panic…yet.
• 12 Ways to Get Involved: [Greg Hartnett]. If you don’t like politics don’t read this post. If you do, or feel you should get more involved, Greg has some good ideas. If you aren’t willing to do anything, don’t complain.
• Optimizing for Google Base: [OneBoxer]. The concept of optimizing GoogleBase for Google OneBox results is new to me, but worth a read for any that have a chance of showing up in OneBox results.

Now I’m back to trying to stay warm for the rest of this cold front. Brrrr…

I’m going to start off with something light today.

• Shawn Hogan showed a snapshot of an IRS tax doc that says if you steal something during the course of the year, you need to pay tax on it…what will the government think of next? Does that not make them complicit?
• Phil Bradley reviews the Zula meta search engine: [Search Engine Land]. Nothing real exciting about there.
• Danny talks about the tired debate of whether or not SEO is overrated: [Search Engine Land]. He does a good job summarizing the debate. Get over there and read it.
• Matt talks about an infrastructure update at the big G: [Matt Cutts Blog]. One takeaway from his post. Sites go supplemental because of a lack of pagerank. Give ‘em a link from your index and you can avoid the supplemental curse.
• eBay buys StubHub for a cool $310 million: [The Next Net]. Very interesting. Looks like they decided they couldn’t beat them head to head so they decided to buy them. Very nice pick up in my opinion.
• ABC shut down a blogger that was criticizing a radio personality and encouraging a boycott: [Media Matters]. Shame on you ABC. Maybe I’ll encourage a boycott of ABC, you going to send me a cease & desist?
• New features at Keyword Discovery: [Search Rank]. Includes support for returning plurals when you search for singular and singular when you search on plurals. Trellian has done a great job with Keyword Discovery. They are definitely my choice for keyword research. A tool you can’t do without, plain and simple.
• Microsoft Live Analytics: [Search Engine Watch]. Honestly I haven’t been over to SEW much since the mass exodus. That aside, the SEW crew runs down citings of Microsoft’s new free analytics program in the wild.
• Social Media Can Build Your Email List: [Proactive]. Sally talks about how effective social media can be in building an email list. Some great tips for anybody trying to build an email list.

I’m going to start listing some of the stories I’m following, as much for a reminder to me when I go back looking for a story as well as stories that I think you might enjoy following as well. I usually spend 1-2 hours a day staying current on the SEO/M industry. Here is what I’m following today.

How to find news for your blog - ProBlogger. As I venture from a blog reader to a blog writer, I’m trying to crystallize my thoughts, strategies and skills. ProBlogger is a great source, and this post helps clarify the importance of news on a blog.

WSJ: Newspaper ‘Open Network’ Coming - Screenwerk. The top newspaper publishers are coming together to try and form a network to capture some of the online advertising revenue.

Permission Marketing 2.0 - CopyBlogger. Again, an important blog to follow for all bloggers, but in particular for us new bloggers. Brian Clark discusses the power of building a list and RSS as a means of building ‘defensible traffic‘.

How Do Search Engine Robots Work - SEO Rountable. The folks over at SEO Rountable summarize a discussion going on at Webmaster World regarding the more technical aspects of crawling, indexing, and presenting the web.

The Future of Ask.com - Marketing Pilgrim. Andy breaks down a ZDNet interview of Jim Lanzone in his discussion of the direction of Ask.com.

Should Google Give Brand Owners a Cut - Search Engine Land. Danny Sullivan takes a look at a discussion from InsideGoogle on whether or not Google should give the owners of trademarks a cut of advertising revenue when competitors build on that trademark.