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Posts Tagged ‘apple’
Tues News: 3/30 (Google in Hot Water Edition)
Michael Block | March 30th, 2010
Google has been getting it’s way and throwing its weight around for a while now. If you get in Google’s way, they are likely to buy you out or do what you do better than you do it. If you’re going along for the ride with them, you’d better be sure not to make them angry. They’ve very quickly established themselves as the most important and salient company of the last decade. Well, as it turns out, the 10s won’t be as easy as the 00s, by all measures, for Google. This year is already starting out with some serious contention and competition for Google. In this edition of the Tues News, we’ll check out some of the troubles that are likely to plague Google in the near future and possibly beyond that. Let’s get going! Apple’s Entry into the Ad Market: Google is the undisputed king of search marketing for some time now. Even though AdWords wasn’t first, it proved to be the best, most user-friendly and most worthwhile method to post ads on SERPs. Google has never looked back and even purchased AdMob to make sure that their footing in the mobile search market is secure. Well, it seems that Apple has plans to throw its hat in the ring as well and iAd could be devastatingly powerful given the dominance of the iPhone and upcoming release of the iPad. It’s true, there are now contenders running Google’s Android OS, but the iPhone remains king and the iPad Continue reading…
Tags: apple, Google, Google trademark lawsuits, iad, search marketing, youtube
Posted in Tues News | 3 Comments
Tues News: 3/9 (Sweating the Small Stuff Edition)
Michael Block | March 9th, 2010
For the companies most involved with search marketing, it’s not always about the actual dollars and cents. Sometimes, companies focus on auxiliary projects to try and better your user experience, increase your dependence on their products or improve your opinion of their brand. Don’t get me wrong, the hope is that these sorts of investments will pay off in real dollars in the long run, but if a company can do some of the small things well, the return on investment can be both well-deserved and highly profitable. Today, we’ll take a look at three such efforts taken by search marketing leaders (Google and MSN) as well as the provider of the dominant medium for mobile ads (Apple via the iPhone). Let’s get going! Google is the master at sweating the small stuff in order to get the big payoff in the end. Just think about Google Maps. Sure, there are ads on the page but if you think that those ads paid for thousands of cars taking pictures of every street in America, you’re sorely mistaken. Google builds these sorts of products to increase loyalty to the Google brand and to build a positive rapport with the user. And it works! Recently, Google shared it’s search data to show their lighter side, depicting the winners and losers of Oscar night through their stats. As it turns out, the Hurt Locker didn’t just take home the most golden baldies, they also received quite the spike of searches. Thanks for sharing, Continue reading…
Tags: apple, apps, Bing, Google, iphone, Microsoft, MSN, search marketing
Posted in Tues News | No Comments
Tues News: 2/23 (Sexy Edition)
Michael Block | February 23rd, 2010
Whoa, this is sure to be a popular version of the Tues News, am I right? Maybe not. After all, what’s sexy to a search marketer and what’s sexy to you (we call you guys “normies”) may not align. Still, just because Wpromote is a respected corporation doesn’t mean we can’t comment on the world of sensual goings on online. I won’t keep you all in suspense anymore; let’s get going! Apple recently dashed the hopes and dreams of aficionados of sexy imagery by banning all sexual content from the app store. Although this may come as a boon to parents and watchdog groups, this comes as terrible news both for males aged 5 to 95 as well as developers of apps that don’t actually contain sexual content but could possibly be used in conjunction with sexual content. For example: an application called Wobble allowed a user to make parts of a static image appear to wobble, as the name might suggest. Of course, the application was often used on parts of the female anatomy to liven up beach photos, but that was the choice of the user, not the creators of the app; you could also use it on a photo of Jello, if you so chose. This presents problems of hypocrisy, as MG Siegler of TechCrunch writes. Safari is probably the most popular application for viewing pornographic photos and it’s a product of Apple! Of course, Safari isn’t going anywhere–neither are apps from companies like Sports Illustrated or Continue reading…
Tues News: 2/2 (Groundhog Day Edition)
Michael Block | February 2nd, 2010
Today is Groundhog Day, which means that the world’s most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, came out of his hole to give us a prediction. Well, it’s bad news, unfortunately, as Phil saw his shadow and doomed us to another six weeks of winter. That’s bad news, however, much like in the movie Groundhog Day, starring the irreproachable Bill Murray, it’s just more of the same. Phil, you see, has seen his shadow in ten out of the last eleven winters! It seems that life is imitating art with this sort of repetition. Well, repetition and “business as usual” seem to be the order of the week in the field of search marketing as well. This time, I’ve brought you three stories of what feel like old stories but are actually hot off the presses in honor of Groundhog Day and the eponymous movie. Let’s get going! Microsoft can’t make money online. No, this story isn’t from when Microsoft created the inferior adCenter after breaking away from Overture. No, this story isn’t about Microsoft failing to purchase Yahoo. This story is about how after the big push for Bing, the gains don’t seem to have outweighed the losses. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing, Microsoft still lost over $2 billion last year. Hey, Microsoft! Maybe if you made adCenter about half as good as Google AdWords, you wouldn’t be in this mess! But no, don’t listen to me; it’s not like I’ve been saying this forever. I just Continue reading…
Tues News: 1/26 (Funny Edition)
Michael Block | January 26th, 2010
Whenever I talk about my job as a search engine marketeer, I often am met with blank looks. It’s not because I’m a rocket scientist and the language I’m using is too difficult for mere mortals to comprehend. It’s also not because I’m a giant bore (I hope!). My guess is that a lot of people just don’t know very much about SEM and, therefore, find it boring. But it’s not all so banal! Sometimes, marketing, even in the search engines, is hilarious! This week, in the Tues News, I will show you exactly what I mean with three funny links to brighten up your wintry afternoon. Let’s get going! This first link is one of my favorites in quite a while. Danny Sullivan, the Big Cheese at SearchEngineLand, is one of the smartest guys in our industry, especially for SEO. I’ve even written about him before in the Tues News. Anyway, he had some sage SEO advice for Bill Gates this week that I found to be really funny. Bill’s blog isn’t getting any love in Google but, perhaps more embarrassing, it’s getting even less love from Bing, a Microsoft property! It just goes to show you that all the money in the world won’t buy you a blog that search engines care about. [SearchEngineLLand] Who doesn’t love web comics? I know I do! In fact, I read about six ongoing web comics on a daily basis (during my free time, not during work, of course). One of the Continue reading…
Tags: apple, Bing, Google, Internet News, SEO, social marketing, Twitter, Viral Marketing, web comics
Posted in Tues News | 4 Comments
Tues News: 8/4 (Big Deals Edition)
Michael Block | August 4th, 2009
Wow, what a week to skip a Tues News. In the past two weeks, there have been some seriously big deals going on and I was too busy doing a webinar to report about it. Please forgive me! If you’re asking yourself, “What big deals is this guy talking about?” then I have great news for you because I am not above reporting on news from two weeks ago here at the Tues News. So, before you check some real news sources that lack the bias and commentary of the Tues News, let’s get going to big deals! 1) Unless you’ve been living in a particularly poorly appointed cave, you’re aware that Yahoo and Microsoft finally struck a deal. The big question seems to be a combination of “so what?” and “so, what does this mean to me?” Well, for now, you probably won’t notice much of a difference but some big changes are a-coming. First of all, this effectively means that Yahoo is out of the search business. What are they? It’s tough to tell but in the future, Yahoo’s search will be powered by Microsoft’s Bing and showing ads populated by Microsoft adCenter. It also means that Yahoo gets to shed the overhead costs of running their own search engine and ad network. So, who ended up the big winner in the deal? It’s tough to tell but you could argue that it’s Google. After all, this means that Yahoo and it’s properties (i.e. Flickr, del.icio.us and services Continue reading…
Tags: apple, Bing, eric schmidt, Google, Microsoft, search marketing, Twitter, Yahoo!
Posted in Tues News | 2 Comments
