As I never tire or stating…I’m a huge Google fan…given my job I pretty much have to be. Cut me crosswise and I have Google written in concentric circles….I’m currently reading a book about those awfly clever people. So I was a bit taken aback earlier this week when I opened up my Gmail to find an invitation to join ad new social network platform called Buzz. OK ‘cool’ I thought…just what I need…another social network to be annoyed by use for two weeks then ignore. When I checked it out I was more than slightly weirded out to note that they had taken the precaution of jump starting my network by hooking up a bunch of more or less random folk from my Gmail distribution lists. The people involved had been neatly selected to be my followers and I was selected to follow a bunch of others.

I know Google is pretty munch omniscient…but even I thought this was a little high handed of them to suggest which of my diverse bunch of correspondents might like each other. I’m guessing they looked for emails where I had included multiple folk in the CCs and figured since I knew them they would probably know each other…a fair assumption but a little rude and potentially disastrous…a couple of scenarios ran through my mind and I got goose flesh just thinking about them.

As it turned out my mild surprise was as nothing to the rain of pain that descended on the Googleplex with everyone from the Canadian government down sharing their concerns/paranoia over this over enthusiastic feature. Google is much more than a day late and a dollar short to the whole social media thing.They have a ton of loyal Gmail users (like me) but those 100 million or so users barely compare to the 400 million Facebook users and I can see how it would be attractive to launch with a built in user base and Shazam! instant social media giant.

In fairness Google took the criticism well and have responded by changing the way the product works and has retreated behind “we were just trying it out and looking for feedback” defense..the last refuge of the scoundrel, but it does rather neatly make the point as my old grandma used to be fond of saying… just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Yesterday I was in mid text chat with someone and my phone stopped sending messages…then  my oldest away at college in Chicago called me up freaking out that he couldn’t text at all and could only call occasionally…then number two son descended on me with similar symptoms. Clearly something bad had happened. I tried T-Mobile support and couldn’t get through, the on-line help first couldn’t then crashed. Being the online kind a guy I am I leapt to both Google News and Twitter and sure enough there was a press release just 23 minutes old about an outage problem which exactly matched the symptoms so I was able to reassure my panicking offspring that the problem was only temporary and they should calm the heck down and stop texting whilst “studying.”    Of the two solutions Google was easier to understand as I didn’t have to study the runes of popular topics on Twitter, but both point to the continued rise of news search and real time search where content  indexed only minutes or seconds ago will show up in search results. It’s a neat trick and getting more real time all the time.

Word is that our friends at Yahoo are about to release a new real-time search which will be integrated with their current main search, it will feature all kinds of social and ‘buzz’ stuff…not 100% sure how it will look but sounds cool.

Meantime in  a related story our good friends Google who have just about a perfect monopoly (90%) of European search are getting in hot water with the EU powers that be potentially landing them in some antitrust doo-doo. A group of what sounds a lot like Fraidy Cat Italian newspapers are bringing a case against Google for excluding them from the search results because they had refused to join the Google News consortium. It sounds a lot like sour grapes (albeit nicely fermented into a fine Chianti) but if it develops into a fight and Google looses the already fairly weird European search space will get even more crazy.  Oh La La! We’ll keep you posted.

As guys go I think I’m reasonably calm, doing my job it’s pretty much essential. I have been known to yell on occasion but I’m in severe danger of blowing my stack about the cool new feature from our good friends at Google called SideWiki. It’s almost entirely brand new but I imagine it has already set off alarm bells all over the world. Just in case this hasn’t crossed your metaphorical desk yet let me fill you in on the details.

If you download the new Google tool bar (or update your existing one) you will acquire the new Google SideWiki tool. It lets you go to pretty much any page on the web and leave your comments on that page in a side pane on the left. You can see other peoples comments and they can see yours. The site owner has no control over what people have written and they can’t remove it. Short of hate speech and obscenity anything goes…anything. If I knew your Face Book page I could zip over there and leave public remarks about anything I feel about you and you can do nothing about it…Nothing.

Here’s a neat scenario. How about I hack into a bank and steal a bunch of credit card numbers and post them on CNN. It’s not legal and no doubt they would be taken down, but not until CNN had discovered the problem and protested, and who should they call at Google?)

Online reputation management has developed into a significant industry. There are many online review sites where you can say all sorts of things about anyone including businesses. Most of these are mediated in some way and you have to know where to go to find the content. Of course some of them are designed to perform very well in search results but it’s been a manageable problem. This tool opens up a whole new world of pain for websites of all shapes and sizes. On the Internet famously nobody can tell you are a dog, all that is needed is a Google account (it takes about 15 seconds to get one and it can be effectively anonymous)  and you are all set to defame and abuse anyone you think worthy of it.

You can also spam to your hearts content. I just checked BBC.co.uk and did you know that

Temecula, CA (PR Web) October 2009 — eLocal Listing, the leading provider of affordable Internet Marketing solutions to small and medium-sized businesses, announced today that they have entered into a strategic agreement with PixelFish, a leader in providing affordable and effective custom video ad solutions. As part of this agreement, eLocal Listing will begin offering its customers these professionally crafted videos as part of our Multi-City & Premium Online Advertising Packages.
New customers will receive a free of charge, professionally designed 20 – 25 second long video embedded onto their eLocal Business Profile Page and distributed across the Internet. These videos have proven to capture the attention of a targeted audience and initiate a call to action by consumers.
Both eLocal Listing and PixelFish are pioneers in providing affordable and effective online advertising solutions that level the playing field by giving small and medium sized businesses unparalleled access to these must have business tools; a strong online presence and an online video ad.
“It seems like only yesterday that eLocal Listing was one of the first (if not the first) to bring online video to small businesses with the introduction of the eLocal Video program”, said Tim Judd, CEO and President of eLocal Listing. “Our relationship with PixelFish is another way that eLocal Listing can bring value to our customers. We are online marketing specialists not movie makers, our videos were great but the professionally produced videos created by PixelFish have proven to be even better. We can now give small businesses videos which compete with businesses with much larger marketing budgets. It’s very exciting for us to be able to offer small businesses videos from a production team that has won three highly coveted silver Telly awards and the 2008 Horizon Interactive Award. The work produced by the team at PixelFish is compelling, concise and right on target in delivering a message that converts a search into a sale. It is like having an advertising agency on your team. We are proud to be partnering with such an innovative and talented team.”
John McIntyre, CEO of PixelFish adds, “We are truly excited about the opportunity to partner with an online marketing innovator like eLocal Listing. eLocal Listing’s commitment to giving small businesses access to the power of video fits perfectly with our strategy of providing the most affordable and effective video ad solutions. eLocal Listing shares our vision of going beyond simply producing a nice-looking video and taking it to the next level of delivering the most effective video for each business that measurably improves lead generation and conversions.”

About eLocal Listing
eLocal Listing is a wholly owned subsidiary of Search Initiatives, LLC and is located in Temecula, CA.
eLocal Listing specializes in managing internet marketing [internet marketing] campaigns for small and medium sized businesses. The company has over 120 employees and currently thousands of customers who take advantage of eLocal’s expertise in Search Optimization and internet search. www.elocallisting.com

About PixelFish
PixelFish, Inc. is a technology-driven provider of award-winning video advertising solutions. The company has developed a revolutionary platform for quickly and easily creating, distributing, and optimizing the most affordable and effective custom video ads. Its intuitive online applications enable a range of video solutions that meet the varying needs and budgets of businesses of all sizes, supported by its global network of more than 3,000 professional videographers. PixelFish is the leading provider of custom-produced video ads to Google, YellowBook and other ad network, search and directory partners. Founded in 2006, PixelFish is a privately-held corporation headquartered in Torrance, California. To learn more, please visit www.pixelfish.com.

OK, I have waited my entire career in product marketing to have a product or to associate myself with a company with a great name. What did I get ? Atex, MEI and product names like IAR, Integrated Accounts Receivable, OK, I named it and sure it was concise and clear, you knew what you were getting right? Yep, an integrated Accounts Receivable package, but try to be clever in your press releases or your promotional packaging. I always wanted some sort of a name that I could rhyme with, make up cute little diddies, use puns, clichés, all those things that people roll their eyes at (and Marketing Coordinators that are 20 years younger, say “I don’t get it”, (shout out to you Jackie, miss you)), but I longed for the catchy, the inane, the just plain silly. Even if it never made it to print or web, it would have been fun to sit around and think of what we could say … I can just imagine the laughs we would have had back in suite 102, Aaaron, Steve, Justin, and the crew! Certainly, eLocal Listing is a name that is solid, makes sense, not a bad choice, again clear and concise, what do we do we provide Internet “e” Local “too obvious to put in parentheses) and Listing, as part of our Internet Marketing campaign we submit Google and Yahoo! Listings. And the logo, oh Steve and Aaron, just refrain … it is OK, I get it … blue, black, chart representing growth, business like. Sure it reminds you of the AT&T bars, but it beat the “ Mickey Mouse” ears logo we had before. But try to use either one of those to come up with a catchy slogan or marketing campaign. Sigh I had been relinquished to a career with product with a boring name … Oh flash back I worked and had to design a website for a company called PPI who had three big RED ARIAL ITALIC BOLD LETTERS as their logo … not good .. sorry, I digress and I will through this entire blog. It will make no sense and may appear self indulgent, but imagine my wonder when I was presented (like a gift) with something I could finally work with, a name, a logo, a partnership with a company who has a cool logo and a name that anyone who has ever had anything to do with marketing would die for … I had a fish. OK, I always wanted a dog, but a fish would do!

So, no I am not going to tell you what I am actually talking about (yet) … I have a fish (of sorts), so for the next few minutes, I am going to get it out of my system … so Martin, our amazing Social Media guy points me to an all Fish Quote site for inspiration … Oh this is fun!

So, let’s see now I can use sayings like “get hooked on”, the whole teach a man to fish saying, fish tales, fish stories, nothing fishy here … fish and visitors stink after three days … Sorry, I know I can’t actually use that one, but I always wanted to quote Ben Franklin in something I did …

Alright so it isn’t as easy as it seems … but it was fun nonetheless .. I guess I could use some help … anyone have any good fish quotes … after all those years with boring names and logos and I draw a blank … Comments, responses are welcomed and encouraged, can’t give you anything for them, just a thanks!

“Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Give me a PixelFish and I eat for a lifetime.” That is your only clue on what I am talking about!

Til next time … more great stuff coming.

This post was written by Carolee Collins

Doing the job I do I get to attend quite a few conferences. Some are very tech oriented with an average attendee age of about 12 with body piercings mandatory, others are more marketing focused, but Kelsey gets the prize for the best food and the most suits. DMS ’09 happened last week in Orlando and we may have been the only group of people wearing jackets within a twenty mile radius.

It was a fascinating conference, I’ll admit that hour after hour focused on trends and solutions for the emerging online side of the Yellow Pages industry isn’t everyone’s idea of a fun couple of days…but I was transfixed. To appreciate the magnitude of the challenge faced by this industry you only need to look at the massive losses and bankruptcies that litter this industry. They have been hit by the perfect storm of market changes, technology advances and economic decline. The days when local businesses bought yellow page print advertising automatically are long gone golden age. The Yellow Page Behemoths are surrounded and confounded by emerging online competitors who don’t have to kill trees to reach customers. Advertisers are becoming focused on one thing and one thing alone…results. To be specific in tough economic times where every advertising dollar is carefully scrutinized they want leads.

Several interesting threads emerged from the conference worth considering in more detail.

* Competition between YP providers is hurting themselves more than anyone else. They had better start hanging together or they will be hung separately.
* Their single strongest surviving asset is the relationship they enjoy with their advertisers through their sales force…and a sales force is essential to work with local businesses.
* Their role is changing, to survive the storm they must become consultative partners for local businesses delivering the leads their advertisers need across all sources.

Perhaps the best summary of where the industry is headed articulated the need as follows.

The winners in the current battle will be those who can provide the following

1. Presence, all the things needed to ensure that the advertiser has an accurate persistent presence both online and offline on a low fixed price basis.
2. Performance, the ability for a business to get more leads to meet their needs on a performance basis such as Pay Per Click or Pay Per Call.
3. Permanence, the ability to provide to advertisers with tools to strengthen the relationship which advertisers have with their customers; social media, blogs and tools like linked in are examples of this.

The good news from our point of view is that we are already delivering on all three of these approaches. We have more to do no doubt, but it was encouraging to see that we are moving in the right direction.

Recently eLocal Listing was a sponsor at the Local Search Summit conference during SES San Jose. Local Search Summit was one of the first conferences with it’s main focus being local search. Some of the highlighted speakers were Jason Calcanis (Mahalo), Steve Stukenborg (Google), Jeremy Stoppleman (Yelp), Jennifer Chin (Google), Sarah Smith (Facebook), and plenty of others.

Since Local Search Summit was only one day each panel was jammed packed with today’s thought leaders on local search, social media, and mobile technology.  Steve Espinosa moderated quite a few panels, and eLocal’s Todd Johnson made an appearance on the panel about “What kind of products do small businesses really need” and shared his sales experience and knowledge with the crowd. I personally was honored to share a panel with Will Scott of Search Influence, and Sarah Smith of Facebook where we discussed social media’s impact on the ability to drive and convert leads for small businesses. You can see my presentation here, and Sarah’s presentation here. (make sure to turn up your volume, as the audio is a bit low).

Overall I enjoyed every session and was able to take away something valuable from each one. eLocal’s Own Steve Espinosa headed up the conference and was well applauded for a great event that ended up being the talk of SES San Jose.

Here are some links to other blogs that covered the events and their feedback/wrap up’s.

SES San Jose YouTube Chanel

Local Search News Wrap Up

Aaron Irizarry Social Media Session and Q&A

Expand 2 Web by Don Campbell Summit Wrap up

Ever since Microsoft’s failed attempt to acquire Yahoo last year the search world has been a twitter about what would be the next shoe to drop and last week it duly fell. In the new deal the main search of Yahoo will be powered by the new Bing search engine from Microsoft. I don’t know if you have tried it but I have been pretty impressed by Bing. Admittedly my home page is still powered by Google…as is my email and desktop search but I’m a fan of the new Bing and the travel search is just excellent. Search is very expensive to do much tougher to do really well than it might appear. Yahoo has so many online leaders in terms of page views, home page users, and a myriad of vertical platforms such as Dating and News and it’s understandable how assigning the cost and aggravation of main search to Microsoft whilst managing to keep most of the revenue might be attractive.
The new alignment of players still leaves Google with a firm lead in search volume but will give Microsoft a strong second place in the race. The switch will likely not case the mighty Google many sleepless nights, but it does make the whole online ecology more interesting. Google owns vast chunks of online beachfront property, but it doesn’t have a Facebook or Twitter killer yet and now it has to take on Microsoft.
The $64,000 question we are hearing from our customers is ‘what does this change mean for my placement in the Yahoo search results’. In the short term, not much, this kind of transition doesn’t happen overnight. In addition Yahoo will continue to run their excellent local search platform and we will continue to deliver the best visibility we can for our customers irrespective of whether the searcher is using Google, Yahoo or Bing.
Historically we have always fared very well in what was MSN Live and is now Bing and we continue to do so. We typically do at least as well in Bing as we do in Yahoo and there is no reason why that would change. We watch the machinations of the search Gods very carefully; we view their progress with the same careful attention to detail as the birds which clean the teeth of the mighty crocodiles that lie basking on the shores of the Nile. We will continue to focus on what we do best; driving business to our customers through local search…irrespective of who is behind the green curtain.

Wendy from Cadmus Environmental of Houston, TX had some of the typical problems small businesses have, people just couldn’t find her business on line.

She knew that as a mold inspector in Houston, TX she was providing a valuable service helping people in Houston’s mold prone climate, and she knew she needed to be found online, but she just hadn’t discovered the right solution that fit her budget.  Wendy even considered doing local search marketing on her own because many Internet Marketing firms were just too expensive.

Then Kyle from eLocal Listing called, explained the services and pricing and worked with Wendy to outline the benefits of the program.  Wendy decided that with the affordable monthly fee and the no contract obligation, that she would give elocallisting a try.  Wendy decided to test out a Premium Profile for three months.  But within the first few weeks she could tell she was getting business from the listing.

Unlike other affordable online services, eLocal Listing places businesses on the major Search Engines with an optimized, highly targeted, call to action driven Business Profile.  In a nut shell, eLocal Listing drives motivated consumers to your business through Local Search.

Wendy agrees…

“The thing I like about the calls I get from [my advertising with eLocal Listing], is that the caller has pre-selected me before they even call since they’ve already read about me and like the approach I take. It cuts down on the amount of selling over the phone I have to do in comparison to the leads I get from other services.”

We are so pleased to have Wendy and Cadmus Environmental as part of the eLocal Listing family.  Thanks for the information and trusting eLocal Listing to provide you with affordable and effective Internet Marketing.