EarthLink announced today that it is “cutting the cord” or “pulling the plug” on its Wi-Fi network in Philadelphia (don’t excuse the impossible pun), once thought to be the national model for wireless Internet access.

Because of the decrease in dial-up Internet subscribers EarthLink tried to move into an untapped form of Internet delivery on a wide scale. The idea was to pepper wireless stations throughout the city that would broadcast an Internet signal. Subscribers could then connect using their user name and password, just like a wireless home network. This idea not only benefited the city, who could charge rent for allowing EarthLink to place their equipment on light posts, but also people who hated wires and EarthLink itself as an Internet provider.

EarthLink’s $17 million investment, along with its lofty promise, has turned into a failure. They projected a minimum of 100,000 users, but currently retain only 9,457 subscribers. Due to these low numbers, EarthLink stated they are losing $200,000 a month maintaining the network. Their subscribers don’t even cover half of the operating costs. In fact, EarthLink wasn’t able give away the network to nonprofits, even after offering an additional $1 million. The city has even refused to take over the network based on the sheer fact that it would cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year to maintain it.

“It’s been an unfortunate situation,” EarthLink Chief Executive Officer Rolla Huff told The Associated Press. “It was a great idea a few years ago…but it’s an idea that simply didn’t make it.”
Huff said EarthLink plans to stay focused on serving individuals using dial-up Internet service and casual Internet surfers who want an economical plan.

You would think that with all of the mobile devices that connect to Wi-Fi these days, this technology would be of tremendous value. Perhaps it still is, but the implementation was poor. It will be interesting to see if another company steps up to the challenge, or if wired will continue to rule. I suspect that it won’t, especially with the deployment of 3G in the US; but for now it seems that’s the way things will go.

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First, I would like to state for the record that I am in love with just about anything and everything that Google does. Having said that, I do have a bone to pick with them concerning their content network.

What exactly is the content network? Google’s content network is comprised of hundreds of thousands of sites that allow Google to show targeted AdWords ads on them. This is called “AdSense” from the website publisher’s perspective. Google’s system “contextually” targets these ads by scanning each web page displaying AdSense and then displaying ads relevant to the content present on the page. So, a web page dedicated to golf might show ads relating to golf clubs, balls or vacations.

This allows advertisers to reach potential customers by advertising on websites that they visit on a regular basis, rather than simply advertising in the search results of Google.

Google’s content network is great, and can be a valuable component of a search engine marketing campaign. The problem I have is twofold:

1. The value of clicks from the content network is less than from the search network; a user on a golfing website who clicks your ad for golf clubs is less likely to purchase than a user on Google who searches for “buy golf clubs”
2. Google automatically opts advertisers into the completely “optional” content network, without any explanation of what it is, or a disclaimer about the variance in value per click.

Google’s AdWords support site states that “New keyword-targeted campaigns are automatically opted in to distribution on the Google Network, so if you want your ads to appear on search and content sites and products, then you don’t need to do a thing.”

Herein lies the problem; it is not doing me a favor to opt me automatically into the content network. In fact, there is no way to opt out of the content network while creating the campaign; even if the seemingly “optional” CPC content bid field is left blank, I am still opted in to the content network.

I can see this being a source of confusion for many AdWords users, as leaving an optional field blank typically means you are choosing not to opt in, but that is not how it is interpreted here. In order to turn off the content network, you have to go back into the campaign settings after the campaign is activated and turn it off from there.

I don’t know about you, but I think this is extremely deceptive, especially for a company whose mantra is “do no evil”. I create campaigns like it’s my job (it is!) and even I occasionally forget to go into the campaign settings immediately after to turn it off.

I cannot fathom the amount of inadvertent money spent (much of it wasted) by advertisers who have no idea that their money is being spread across the content network. If I am a new advertiser signing up to “advertise on Google”, it is a fair assumption that on Google is where my ads will appear.

Apparently, I am not alone; a few weeks ago Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP, filed a lawsuit against Google for this very gripe. The suit was filed on behalf of David Almeida and claims that Google is deceiving AdWords users into spending money on advertising they did not explicitly request; automatically being opted in to the content network when the CPC content bid field is left blank is the basis for the suit. The lawsuit states that, “By redefining the universally understood meaning of an input form left blank, and then intentionally concealing this redefinition, Google has fraudulently taken millions of dollars from Plaintiff and the members of the class.” Kabateck has previously taken part in multi-million dollar click fraud settlements against both Google and Yahoo; maybe this is just who we need to put a stop to these deceptive tactics. In the meantime, keep an eye on those content settings!

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Is the process by which United States administrative patent judges are appointed in this country unconstitutional? This is the question a law professor at George Washington University Law School, by the name of John Duffy, sought out to answer, after he stumbled across what appeared to be a flaw in our judicial system that dates back to 2000.

The troublesome thing is that after doing extensive research Professor Duffy found out that he was correct. He discovered a constitutional flaw in the appointment process of the judges who decide cases dealing with patent appeals and disputes, stating that the appointment process is unconstitutional. Since 2000, patent judges have been appointed by a government official who has neither the authority nor the constitutional power to appoint patent judges. The problem Professor Duffy identified at least arguably invalidates every decision the patent court has made since March 2000.

Photo credit Bhtmfan

Are you kidding me? All court cases involving patents in an 8-year span?! These findings could affect thousand of patent decisions affecting billions of dollars. Can you imagine the effect it could potentially have on our country if the Supreme Court decides that these cases should be appealed and retried? Quite honestly I can’t, but it does pose many questions. Who all will this affect? What companies? How many people’s personal lives will be turned upside down? The final ramifications could be astounding.

Cases such as the Translogic case (where $86 million is at stake) are already being taken to the Supreme Court on the basis that “an improperly constituted tribunal should not be deciding the case, so we will have to go back and have the decision made by a properly constituted panel.” Personally I can’t wait to see how this all turns out. As it stands now the justice department is not disputing Duffy’s findings and is already desperately looking for a solution. What solution will they find? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

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What are the best strategies a website can use to get new subscribers or email leads? Advertising, creating fascinating new content, blogging…these are a few obvious ways. Yet an alternative recently caught my attention recently.

On April 8^th Forbes posted an article titled “America’s Most Miserable Sports Cities.” I know what you are thinking, “Forbes is writing sports articles?” I guess they justify it by explaining that professional sport teams are really money-making corporations. This is true; however, most of their sport articles have nothing to do with any type of financial aspect. Anyway, that’s another blog for another time.

This article created a list based on authors Tom Van Riper’s and Andrew Farrell’s criteria and opinions. Regardless of the fact that the list is opinion based, it is the worst list ever created. The 10 Commandments led to the rationalization of George W. Bush and, as Rage Against the Machine would put it, “killing in the name of”. Yet, Forbes’ list has managed to outdo the chaos that followed the Commandments. In a nutshell the list has Atlanta at the top and Philadelphia and Cleveland low on the list. Being from Cleveland, I, like many others, take pride in being the most miserable loser in the U.S. Naturally, I wanted to blast back at Forbes and its fools, so I went down to the bottom of the online article and clicked the comment button…

And that’s where they got me!

To be able to post a comment one must provide a valid email address. Steamed and ready to unload a bus of hell bound vocabulary, I signed up and typed something which soon faded into a mass of shadows cast by such an awful article. (To view my comment click here.) The article received many comments from miserable people from miserable towns. All negative.

So is it coincidence that not one person agreed with this article? Maybe. It could be that the one who agrees, may not feel as passionately as the person who feels slighted, ergo, no comment. The more likely scenario is that this article was written to anger people. The article makes people fanatical: they sign up, comment, feel used afterwards, get depressed, get fired from their job, start drinking, get a divorce, lose custody of their children, do some things they aren’t proud of for money (things they only did as experiments in college), eventually get help, start a new life, and then blog about it. More or less.

The whole signing into the website to view the entire article and comment idea is a great way to sucker people into giving an email address. Nothing is for free. We pay to comment. The fee is our email address, which can be turned into a sizable profit if properly solicited.

Thank you for the comment. Enjoy the spam.

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In general, the Internet and online communities have skyrocketed to success with no plateau in site. Why is it that some online ventures, such as Virtual Trade Shows (VTS), have not been able to ride the Internet’s coattail to success, no matter how hard they try? VTS aren’t even attempting to take over the live shows that currently flourish; they simply want to co-exist with the advantage of being a 24-7-365 resource. Seems like a great addition for exhibitors internet-savvy enough to make a smooth transition, but for others it remains an alien concept to be kept as far away as possible.

The minimal success of VTS is generally attributed to these arguments:

• Loss of face to face interaction
• Inability to touch or see a demonstration of the product
• Lack of technical knowledge

These are the same arguments so many people used to criticize e-commerce and social networking sites when they were starting out. Fault must lie somewhere within this critique because it has been proven wrong previously. People have learned to shop, network and conduct business meetings online; they even prefer it in many cases. If these cons are seemingly invalid, then what’s the problem…?

There are some great advantages to exhibiting and attending a Virtual Trade Show. Besides the fact that they are engaging and intriguing to new users (its like you are playing SimCity, check out Second Life that lets you go so far as to pick out whether want to wear a suit or jeans for your virtual meeting with Google), they are cost efficient and a huge time saver. Detailed reporting is available of exactly what each attendee is doing, your conversations are recorded and you can monitor what other products attendees are interested in. This means exhibitors don’t have to go back to their office and spend hours deciphering scribbled notes about who they talked to. ROI is tracked and marketing is targeted to people in a buying mindset, mirroring the benefits of online advertising. VTS are significantly cheaper than attending a live event, in fact the total cost is typically cheaper than just the shipping cost for a regular show. There are no travel fees, no hotels, and no food/entertainment costs. In addition, virtual shows are not affected by weather, you can talk to more than one person at a time, international attendance is easier and attendees can linger anonymously and take their time learning about a product. In sum, the person spending the money to attend these shows should be a huge supporter. That’s if the amount of traffic and recognition actually rivaled the live events.

So, what needs to happen to make this work? I personally think that the only groups capable of positively impacting this product are the large trade show producers. These producers, such as The Nielsen Company and Reed Exhibitions, control everything in the realm of conventions. Without their support attendees and exhibitors are not going to feel comfortable investing their time and energy in VTS. There are two major roadblocks in getting the major trade show companies to support the combination of their live events with a virtual companion. The first problem is, the advantages that exist for the exhibitors and attendees do not hold true for the producers. Instead they will loose a great deal of profit if people start deciding they can send less people to the live trade shows and spend less on advertising at the shows. Second, large trade show producers are deathly afraid of the Internet. Most of them are years behind where they should be when it comes to their websites and online advertising. If they have a site where you can find the dates, location, a contact, some pictures and a description they are happy. If you can register online and get some sort of newsletter updates they think their website is the best it needs to be. Many of the trade show producers will be completely at the mercy of the VTS developers.

While virtual trade shows generally have not produced a large profit the future is definitely looking brighter, and so it is not time for them to give up yet. After five years of dismal results, the largest VTS company Unisfair, finally boasted a 350% growth in 2007. This month also marks the first acquisition of a VTS. Worldwide Business Research, who produced over 200 live trade shows last year, acquired the company eComXpo, a VTS for e-Commerce marketers.

My prediction:  Virtual Trade Shows will eventually team up with major trade show producers to find a happy medium. 

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Prompted by a recent article on Yahoo and the email chain that followed, I have decided to further explore health in the workplace. The Yahoo article described alternatives to diet soda consumption offering fewer calories and no artificial sweeteners. More bluntly, drinks which are better for you.

There are many myths and misconceptions about what is “good” for you. The “8 glasses of water per day” is a perfect example of this. While drinking 8 glasses of water is not bad for you, there is no scientific rational for this exact amount, nor is it clear where this concept even originated.

Soda is an easy target when declaring common food and beverages bad for your health. I think we all realize that soda is probably not the best drink for a healthy lifestyle, but c’mon! It’s so good! Once it hits your lips it’s so good! The main reason those in the know warn against soda consumption is because of its content of high fructose corn syrup. A common sugar substitute, HFCS is found in almost every food product imaginable today. It is an extremely cost effective artificial sweetener, but it is high in calories and provides almost no nutritional value. Soda is also very acidic, which will cause your body to strip calcium from your bones in order to balance out your internal ph levels. We have a lot of soda here at work and if somehow this article persuades you to swear off soda you may say to yourself, “But what about all of the extra soda we have? I don’t want it to go to waste.” Fear not, I say! For all is not lost! According to numerous household cleaning Websites, soda can clean your toilet, eliminate rust from a car bumper and remove grease from clothing. Whew, dodged a bullet there! Sugar definitely gets a bad rap these days, but it’s really what kind of sugar and where it comes from that matters.

An absolutely wonderful alternative to processed foods are all natural delicious treats. Below are a few great natural snacks for work. You may never have heard of these foods before so I will list them with brief health benefits below:

· Apples - Vitamin A and C, Antioxidants

· Grapes - Vitamins A, C and P

· Bananas - Vitamins A, B1, B2, B5 and C, Potassium

· Peaches – Vitamin C

· Strawberries – Extremely rich source of Vitamin C

· Almonds – Folate, Vitamin E and A, Niacin

· Cashews – Vitamin K, Folate

· Peanuts – Niacin, Vitamin E, Folate

· Pistachios – Vitamin A, Folate

· Carrots – Vitamin A, C, B6, and Niacin

You will receive the most health benefits from eating the above mentioned foods raw and by themselves. So even though carrots and ranch are delicious, you will lose much of the benefit with this crazy concoction.

Besides eating and drinking right what else can be done to improve health in the workplace? Exercise of course!

Now, it may not always be practical to do laps around the office, but much can be accomplished at ones desk. It is also important to get up and walk around. In our case, foosball is not merely a way to take a quick break, but actually improves our health! We have to play foosball in order to stay healthy. This is science in action, people. (All mentions of “science in action” do not refer to the actual field of science and should not be interpreted as fact or anything resembling an informed opinion) All of this healthy goodness does not come without a price. A common side effect of intense “foos” action is the development of massive forearm muscles. I have personally noticed disfigured co workers from this devastating consequence of science in action.

But seriously, cubicle exercises are a great way to get your blood flowing and draw intrigue from your fellow workers or disgust if happen to love a solid lunge workout. Feel the Burn! Simple stretches can do wonders for your day. While sitting at your desk, try some shoulder rolls, neck rolls, upper body stretches, wrist stretches, and practice the 20-20-20 rule. To prevent eyestrain, every 20 minutes take your focus away from your computer screen and focus on something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds.

Tea is better than Coffee. There I said it. I can already hear the sounds of angels dying. Sure coffee tastes good, smells great, and helps you get through the day, but what about life? Tea, no matter the kind, is packed with antioxidants and disease fighting compounds. Tea has been shown to lower heart disease and stroke rates among daily drinkers. It also lowers LDL “Bad” cholesterol, boosts your metabolism, slows the growth of tumors, improves skin, protects against Parkinson’s disease, and even delays the onset of diabetes. It also contains no calories. To be fair, coffee exhibits some of these same qualities, but tea is still better. Science in action!

Exercise and diet have even been shown to lower stress levels, reduce and the risk of sickness, and can lead to increased productivity at work. An apple a day really can keep the boss away! I mean doctor.

So, next time you are reaching for that bag of chips or standing at the vending machine deciding to go with a Diet Coke or Sunkist Orange Soda, totally go Sunkist! Its delicious! I kid. Instead brew yourself a nice cup of green or black tea and have a red delicious. Who knows, it may just save your life. Also, do the stretches at your desk. Lunge Attack!

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So, there’s good news and bad news from the Yahoo camp for Microsoft.

The good news is that Yahoo is definitely open to the idea of a buyout.

The bad news is that it’s gonna cost Microsoft much more than they originally anticipated.

Yahoo responded to Microsoft’s buyout bid by reiterating that the $44.6 billion offer undervalued the search engine and online mega-portal. Despite the fact that Yahoo share prices have recently dipped to well below the offered price of $31/share, Yahoo is confident that they can get more out of a potential buyer. Other names that have been discussed as interested in Yahoo include News Corp. and Time Warner Inc.

Personally, I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of Yahoo becoming the property of Microsoft. The effects on paid search would be difficult to predict. Many remember that Yahoo and Microsoft shared Overture as a paid search provider years ago and, since Microsoft broke away from Yahoo in mid-2006, the companies have moved in different directions in terms of the quality of their search products.

Although Google’s AdWords product is unmatched in terms of usability and efficiency, I think that it would be fair to say that Yahoo, especially since its move in 2007 to the “Panama” platform, has made significant strides to improve. Whereas Overture and Yahoo Search Marketing in its infancy were very difficult to use and were often easily ignored by users who frequently dedicated their entire search budget to Google, nowadays, we find that Yahoo is, at the very least, an excellent supplement to an active Google AdWords account and, in some cases, a flat-out better provider of quality traffic.

Microsoft’s MSN adCenter product, on the other hand, continues to baffle users and agencies alike. With an inefficient user interface, an inability to opt out of unpredictable traffic drivers such as a-list, and a still developing support staff, Microsoft has, in many ways, regressed even from the days of Overture. Who’s to say that Microsoft, despite its war chest of funding, wouldn’t simply degrade the quality of Yahoo’s product in the event of a takeover, leaving Google without any real competition? It’s a frightening possibility.

It’s unclear whether Microsoft will balk at Yahoo’s demand for a better offer or whether this was an expected move from the opposition in what will inevitably be a buyout. For search marketers, though, I feel that there is some cause for optimism in either scenario. If Microsoft does balk and Yahoo remains independent, I feel that it really puts the pressure on Yahoo to continue to invest in their search marketing product in an effort to narrow the usability gap between Google AdWords and itself. In the event of a takeover, I would hope that Microsoft would be more likely to integrate with Yahoo’s current model or upgrade their current system to include some of the improvements that Yahoo’s system offers. Microsoft is many things, but it is not a stupid company; we could potentially end up with a product superior to the current Yahoo and MSN products that integrates both engines.

The ball is back in Microsoft’s court. Unless they are ready to pony up more cash, Yahosoft remains purely fictitious.

**Update: There was an interesting BusinessWeek article backing Yahoo’s play of holding out.  Check it out.

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SEOmoz, one of the best resources for general advice and expert opinions on all things SEO, featured an enraged article yesterday regarding the low priority that startups are advised to put on SEO in relation to their other advertising ventures. Rand, SEOmoz’s esteemed CEO, focused not on the idea that startups are ignoring SEO–although, for all intents and purposes, many do–but that they are being advise by so-called and often self-proclaimed “startup experts” that this behavior is right and justified.

Three things compelled me about this article:

1. The colloquial and comedic way in which it was written,
2. The conversation it sparked in the comments below,
3. The fact that Rand is completely right; everyone should be engaging in SEO, most of all startups.

Here is an excerpt from the article that I found particularly engaging:

Let’s imagine you’ve just dreamed up some brilliant new web startup company that’s going to change the world and fill this great unfulfilled need. Now, if only there were some way to figure out if other people were interested in solving the same problem. If only we had access to some sort of a repository of human queries that would tell us how popular and worthwhile our idea might be… Gee, that would be great…

For f***’s sake, people - get a clue.

Rand is, of course, talking about Google. When put into language like this, it sure makes a compelling case to engage the search engines, doesn’t it? Google, boiled down to its most basic function, is the world’s biggest forum for getting X to people who are trying to get X. If you’re looking for X, Google doesn’t give you Y or Z, it gives you X. If you are a vendor of X, you should probably be interested in a forum that does the qualification for you.

I can only imagine that the experts that Rand describes in his article–the ones continue to dole out SEO-free startup advice–were either lucky to have succeeded sans SEO in the first place or succeeded before SEO in its current form existed. Either way, an ignorance of SEO may be a decent enough excuse to ignore it on an individual level, but to advise others against a medium that could be so potentially helpful is just unscrupulous, especially when considering that even great startups need all the help they can get.

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Upon recent viewing of the very serious movie No Country For Old Men, my friends and I could not help but hysterically laugh when Josh Brolin appeared on screen. We immediately identified him as Brandon “Brand” Walsh from our favorite childhood movie The Goonies.

The “Brand” recognition was so strong that we had a hard time taking this very serious character, seriously. While my friends and I may not be the most austere movie watching audience, this got me thinking about how branding can create a lasting impression on consumers. Specifically, this “Brand” recognition can be applied to the effect a brand can have on your direct response search campaign and how to measure the effectiveness.

For as long as advertising has been in existence, branding has been a major goal for marketers. Branding typically has taken place offline, but in recent years we have seen a significant shift in ad dollars spent towards online branding. Up until recently, the major goal of any Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign has been direct response, with the goal to drive customers searching for a specific product or service to drive sales or leads.

Search Engine Marketing has increasingly become a medium for branding, whether it was intended or not. Direct response SEM campaigns create brand awareness with each impression. The bigger your campaign, the greater your reach and ultimately the impact of your branding.

For example, if your ecommerce store, “XYZcomputers.com,” is matched to the keyword “custom computers” and every relevant variation and your text ad displaying XYZcomputers.com is triggered with a high frequency, your brand will be associated with the sale of custom computers. To measure the extent of that association, two factors must be monitored closely.

1) The number of impressions and clicks generated on your brand name keywords in the major search engines,

2) Direct type in traffic,

Looking across multiple direct response campaigns, I have noticed a steady growth trend in the effectiveness of each brand. From the time campaigns launch, we see an increasing volume in brand name search volume, type in traffic, and ultimately an increase in sales/leads. The “Brand Effect” can be seen most everywhere, it is all just about looking at the “Data.”

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In recent months, the US economy has taken a turn for the worse. The lucrative “housing bubble” of past years has metaphorically burst, the stock market is exhibiting even more instability than usual, and long standing financial institutions have crumbled under the ever increasing weight of defaulting loans. All are interrelated and I point them out because they are clear signs that the US economy is in a period of slow down. Realistically, it is more a period of normalization from the over abundance and overreach of years past.

Prices at the pump will easily soar beyond $4.00/gallon this summer causing a far reaching chain reaction on the economy. This has already begun to play out in certain industries. Just last week, Delta Air Lines said it is going to offer voluntary severance payouts to roughly 30,000 employees–more than half its work force–to deal with soaring fuel prices. Unemployment will no doubt rise and more Americans will be left looking for work that isn’t there. So how is Search Engine Marketing, an industry dominated by businesses with small advertising budgets, going to remain unscathed and possibly flourish?

With more Americans losing their jobs, people will turn to the only alternative they have to sustain a decent living: the Internet. One could argue that the most economically effective way to market a small business is through online advertising. It is the only place where a relative newcomer or innovative start up can actually compete with industry heavyweights. For a couple hundred dollars per month, a small time entrepreneur can effectively advertise through the search engines. By comparison, a 30 second television ad on one of the nation’s top 10 shows will set you back anywhere from $300,000 to over $1 million.

Under these circumstances, search marketing is less of a discretionary income expense and more of an essential expense. I’m sure my college economics professor would disagree out of principle, but this brings up an interesting point. If during a market recession, an individual’s/family’s sole income source is their home business, then doesn’t the advertising of that business become a necessary expense–an expense so essential for survival that it becomes intertwined with other necessary expenses, such as clothing and shelter?