It is a valid question. It is not inconceivable that there might be other search engines.

Ask.com (previously Ask Jeeves) has recently relaunched their site. They are advertising quite heavily (offline which is probably not a good sign, when did you last see a Google billboard?) in the US at the moment.

The user interface is very good and has a very slick Web 2.0 feel to it. I like it a lot and for someone who highly values the aesthetics of websites, it is a pleasant change to the decidedly basic look and feel of Google. I’m the number one search result for “Jon Beattie” (of course, there can be only one), but the rest of the results are quite different from Google. They have indexed my Linked-In profile, all my Flickr photos, and a whole bunch of links I’ve never seen before, including my submission to thisisbroken.com, which I didn’t even realise was posted until now. The key difference I think is that Google automatically assumes that you actually wanted to search for John Beattie (with an H) which is very annoying, as people continually put the unwanted H in my name. Sugarrae has recently posted about this issue. I think she has a point, is the “Did you mean” functionality of Google actually that clever?

Over in China, the leading search engine is not Google, but Baidu.com. This must be somewhat annoying for Google as they have basically just copied their interface design. Not sure about their search algorithm, it is apparently very old school according to the chatter on Webmaster World (only looks at meta tags and keyword content and doesn’t take into account incoming links). They have just announced that they intend to launch in Europe soon. This will be interesting to watch. Apparently it is very good for finding illegal MP3 and video downloads, perhaps that will be their niche.

I think I’ll stick with Google for now as my default search engine, but Ask.com is going into my Firefox Search Bar.

It IS 1999 again (except without the IPO’s). Here are today’s deals:

• Fox Interactive Media buy Photobucket and Flektor.
• CBS buys Last.fm.

GigaOM has the full details.

Don’t want to go on about YouTube, but just found Motiono. I know there are a raft of new video sharing sites, however, these guys have literally copied YouTube and changed out the logo.

The SMH has an interesting article covering the first interview with YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen for a while. Here are the key points:

• They say a video advertising platform for YouTube could be ready within the next couple of months, although may be delayed by Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick.
• They are also close to deploying tools that will provide great copyright protection to content owners, a key issues they are facing with various large companies (Viacom, English Premier League, to name but a few) trying to take them to task for copyright infringement.
• One of these is in the area of unauthorised music tracks included in video clips. They are working with Los Gatos-based Audible Magic who have a technology that can flag unauthorised music.
• YouTube made US$15 million in revenue for Google last year.

US$1.6 billion for US$15 million in revenue. That is an impressive multiple! However, they did take Google stock rather than cash for most of it I believe.

In a related article, they are taking the the US Department of Defense to task for blocking access to YouTube. They have also blocked a host of others sites including MySpace, claiming they can’t handle the bandwidth across their network. As the YouTube guys point out, errr didn’t the DoD invent the Internet? The implication is that they are really concerned about video footage from the front getting uploaded without any controls in place.

Well, it isn’t really the question for me as my business is largely about selling our clients on the benefits of business blogs or at least actively engaging the blogging community.

I still encounter resistance on almost a daily basis though. Here are the frequently asked questions and concerns that get posed to me when recommending a blog strategy:

What if a staff member posts something on the blog that is commercially sensitive?

A valid concern, however, what happens if a staff member sent something commercially sensitive by email? Are you going to monitor and read every single message they send out? Many, many people are unaware of the intensely insecure nature of email. Standard email messages are completely unencrypted and exceptionally easy to intercept. A single email message will generally get copied into log files on numerous mail servers around the world. The little button in Outlook that lets you recall a message, is essentially a ruse. You can’t actually recall or delete an email after it is sent.

My point? You have to trust your staff to be sensible the same way you trust them with a host of other mediums that can be used to communicate with the world. You can always have an internal blog or wiki if it is to be used for highly sensitive information, that’s what we do.

What if nobody posts anything?

You need to sell blogging to the people whom you want to be involved in the company and have some champions who will lead the way. One thing I noticed is that the guys in my team would send interesting links and information they had found to the all staff email list. I always just reply and tell them to blog it instead. I think all companies will be pleasantly surprised at the depth and breadth of knowledge available within their people. To be able to easily harness and share this knowledge is so incredibly powerful.

What is someone posts a critical comment?

This requires a complete shift in corporate thinking. Traditionally companies would shy away from publicly embarrassing issues and retain expensive PR spin doctors to deal with issues like this. I’ve previously posted about how Dell, in the face of growing customer dissatisfaction and criticism from the media, has embraced blogs and other Web 2.0 initiatives to try and create a far greater level of transparency with their market. There’s is an excellent case study of how conversations and dialogue are better than dealing with criticism in media that you have no control over. If you read my post on CEO blogs, I conclude that the most important thing is to deal with the comments and keep your blog active rather than shy away from it if things are going the way you want. Charles Dunstone at The Carphone Warehouse learnt that the hard way.

Another example, is low cost operator Southwest Airlines in the US, who currently have an unassigned seating policy on their flights. They posted on their blog that they were thinking of moving to assigned seating. They were overwhelmed with comments in response from their customers. The verdict was undeniably that this would be a “New Coke” scale tragedy if they were to proceed. All this within a matter of hours.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, blogging in the business environment, especially if you are the technology or communications business, should be a part of your marcomms strategy. If you are targeting the US market, then you should take this even more seriously. If you look at the number of Fortune 500 tech companies with blog strategies, the list is long and distinguished.

Technorati Tags: blogs, cgm, consumer generated media

Joost has just announced a major licensing deal with Viacom which will see hundreds of hours of their TV programming and movies from Paramount Studios, available on the Web 2.0 Internet TV platform.

What will this mean for Joost customers? Here is an excerpt from the press release:

MTV Networks will provide premier content from several of its brands for launch. MTV will offer popular shows, both past and present, including Laguna Beach, Beavis & Butthead, Real World, Punk’d and My Super Sweet Sixteen, while COMEDY CENTRAL will feature episodes from Stella, CCP’s and Freak Show. Nickelodeon, CMT: Country Music Television, MTV2, Logo, Spike TV, mtvU, and Gametrailers.com will also provide content. VH1’s offerings will include episodes of Flavor of Love, Surreal Life, and I Love New York. BET’s Networks’ offerings will include some of its biggest shows, including Beef, DMX: Soul of a Man, Comic View and recent smash hit American Gangster. Also, Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage and Paramount Classics will be providing full-length feature films from their catalog of classics and recent releases.

“We’re interested in distribution of our content on as many platforms as possible, provided we can operate in a secure environment,” Viacom Chief Executive Philippe Dauman said in an interview. “This assures any potential partners that we’re open for business and that we’re able to enter into transactions with companies that respect our content and the considerations of our business.”

Meanwhile, YouTube has been ordered by Viacom to remove over 100,000 videos from the site that they claim contain Viacom copyright material.

It will be interesting to see how other players like Viacom react to this deal. It certainly seems like Joost is the answer they have been looking for in terms of getting their content online, but with IP protection and a revenue model. It could prove tough times ahead for Google and YouTube as they try to walk the thin line between commercial partnerships and legal action with these media companies.

Technorati Tags: google, joost, viacom, youtube

Joost, the interactive Internet TV start-up, from the founders of Skype, have just released a beta for Mac OS X (Intel). Fantastic, am downloading it now.

Technorati Tags: joost, skype, tv2.0

Andy Lark has just posted that Rupert Murdoch told the Digital Hollywood conference in New York last week about MySpace:

“It’s extraordinary, the advertising has gone from basically nothing to, on a net basis, $25 million a month and growing every month - almost 30 per cent every quarter,”

He added:

“Next year we’ll be kicking in with search revenue from Google so together with IGN, we’ll be getting close to a billion dollars of revenue.”

MySpace is huge, you have to be looking at this as a marketing option, especially if you are targeting the 15-25 demographic.

Technorati Tags: myspace

Here is my summary of Shawn Gold’s presentation at ad:tech Sydney today. Shawn is the Chief Marketing Officer for MySpace.com, the world’s biggest social network. How big you ask? Well;

• 0 - 150+ million registered users in less than 3 years.
• Number One in the US in terms of page impressions, downloads and average time spent (an indicator of how “sticky” the content is). Other sites have more unique visitors (those with much wider appeal such as CNN.com etc) but no one can match them in terms of actual content delivered.
• Number 5 in Australia of all websites, Number 1 based on the same metrics as in the US.
• 400 billion page views per month, over 100 billion ads served.
• Currently in 7 countries, with internationalised sites, and will be in 20 countries by year end 2007, including China.

What advertising options do they offer now to advertisers beyond just standard online ads?

• The movie industry were really the first to adopt MySpace seriously as an advertising option by setting up dedicated MySpace pages with video trailers and allow other users to comment on and become friends of the movie. A movie studio can spend between US$1 - 3 million in a period of a couple of weeks to promote a new release through targeted advertising on the network. They can get instant market feedback and research on a movie as soon as it is released via comments on their MySpace page.
• Bands and comedians have used MySpace to build and maintain a loyal fan base. It is becoming common for them to offer exclusive access to events to just their MySpace friends. The Beastie Boys recently did a show recently where only their MySpace friends could gain entry.
• MySpace creates originally branded video content that can then be promoted through the network.
• MySpace can promote original video content. Dove Skincare in Canada created a 1 minute video, did a very small TVC campaign and then pushed it entirely online, using MySpace and other tools. They got 20-30 million unique views for a fraction of the dollars it would have cost to get via traditional air time.
• They can offer highly targeted campaigns e.g. if you wanted to advertise to all hip hop DJ’s in the US market or just California, they can do this.
• If you have a MySpace page and have built up a significant number of friends, then MySpace can run demographic profiles on your friends, given you deep metrics on who is interested in your product/brand.

What’s next? Well like everyone, they are trying to figure out how to monetise consumer generated video content. I was interested to discover that MySpace delivers more video content than YouTube or Google Video. Videos with “hotspots” with hyperlinks, branded/”wrapped” video players and pre and post rolls are all being experimented with.

What are the key areas of focus for MySpace?

1. Self Expression Platform - Growing their toolkit of widgets and tools to allow more consumer generated content to be put up on MySpace. They really believe that this idea of self-expressionion, 21st century cyber-hippies if you will, are the key to their success. Other previous social networks, such as Friendster, which was the basis for their business model, failed because they were very restrictive on the content you could publish and in what format. For example they wouldn’t allow you to customise the look of your Friendster page.
2. Communications Platform - Various tools such as instant message, text, Voice over IP, video calling, to enable their users to communicate easily with one another.
3. Content Aggregation - They already have massive communities for movies, music and comedians, they intend to pool more content in specific communities such as fashion.
4. Marketer Platform - Tools for marketers and agencies to more easily advertise and run/analyse campaigns on their site. Importantly, all advertising and the type of advertising will always be elective to the user to avoid the impact being diluted over time.
5. Safety & Education - MySpace gets a bad rap from people about the dangers of meeting people online. Confidence in the site is critical to the site and they have a big team working on this area. Every photo (about 5 million per day!) and video(about 40,000 per day) posted to the site is looked at by a human being to screen out pornographic or hateful material.
6. Internationalization - Continuing to roll out MySpace to different countries in different languages with regional specialisations.

Here are some final soundbites:

Andy Worhol said “Everyone is famous for 15 minutes” well today “Everyone is famous for 15 people”

The arty kid in a small time who used to feel isolated because he coudn’t relate to the friends in his local school can now connect with thousands of like-minded people around the world. It’s a great time to be lonely on the Internet.

Technorati Tags: myspace

Joost is the new baby from the clever guys that brought us Kazaa and then Skype. It has been known as The Venice Project until now and is basically TV on demand on your computer but will no doubt leverage their established credentials in building huge online communities. This is how they explain it:

Joost™ is a new way of watching TV on the internet, which uses new and established technologies to provide the best of both the internet and TV worlds. We’re in the process of making it as TV-like as we can, with programmes, channels and adverts. You can also see some things that we think will enhance the TV experience: searching for programmes and channels, for example, as well as social features like chat. There are many more new features to come!

This is a significant step towards what I referred to as TV 2.0 in a previous post.

I’ve got a beta account so will post my experience once I have had a chance to play with it.

Technorati Tags: joost