Digital Marketing and Technological Insight

Just came across the funniest website I have a seen in a long time. Yahoorezinr.com is a do-it-yourself Yahoo! resignation letter…yup all you have to do is pick who you want to send it to, what you want to say and sign your name. Then you just have to click send and it will be forwarded to Jerry Yang himself. The form gives you the option to me nice, mean or brutally honest…all depends on your experience working at Yahoo.

Here is an actual example of the letter that is sent out…

——————–

To: JerryYang@Yahoo.com

Subject: Get bent, asshat

Dear Mr. Yang

It is with great glee that I ask you to accept this letter as my official resignation from Yahoo. My last day here will be tomorrow after which time I shall be taking a position with Google. As you know for some time now I have been desiring more time with my family and thus I feel the time has finally arrived for me to move on and of course I would not be forthright if I failed to mention how much it distressed me to see some of the moves management has made in recent weeks.

For example I found the recent advertising agreement reached with Google to be unwise. Furthermore as I have watched management squander once-valuable properties such as Flickr I have come to realize that management does not seem to fully understand social media. Thus, I am tendering my resignation as of today. If you would like me to sign a non-compete clause I will be glad to do so seeing as my new position is in a different market segment.

Sincerely

John Q. Yahoo

——————–

I actually choose some of the “nicer” and less vulgar options when it came to putting together the letter. Sadly, considering the moves Yahoo has made in recent weeks many people might feel some of the more risque options are completely valid. Plus, with all of the senior Yahoo people leaving recently this Yahoo resignation letter could come in handy.

Of course the big question is still where does Yahoo go from here?

As we all know Twitter is one of my favorite topics to talk about. This weekend I actually had a chance to talk with a friend of mine who works for a competing micro-blogging service on the future of this niche area as well as what lies ahead for Twitter. I can’t name what company he works for but let me just say if you are a heavy user of Twitter you probably use his service as well.

Think Twitter and other micro-blogging services like Pownce, Plurk and Jaiku are not forces to be reckoned with? Twitter had close to 15 million visits last month with 15% growth. Impressive stats for any website let alone one that hasn’t been out of Beta for very long. Also, think about the amount of time a visitor spends engaged with Twitter via the web, desktop applications and mobile applications. I couldn’t find exact stats on this metric but I am sure it is impressive to say the least. Either way you look at it, Twitter and Twitter like services are here to stay.

For those of you even somewhat familiar with Twitter, you know that their biggest challenge lies in fixing the technical issues that have caused its not-so-recent downtime and performance issues. But, let us assume for a moment that the good people behind Twitter fix everything and from now on it runs smoothly. Great, now what? Twitter’s challenges are just beginning, they now have two major hurdles ahead of them: growth and monetization. Two challenges that every Web 2.0 type web service are grappling with and are not solved very easily. However, I do believe that Twitter is in a unique position to overcome these challenges by leveraging its existing user base, allowing micro-blogging to become truly mainstream and building itself into more of a true social destination as opposed to an outlet for the tech savvy.

I think everyone can agree that the obvious path to meeting all of the challenges I listed would be to have micro-blogging go mainstream. But how does one go mainstream? Then once you are mainstream how do you monetize the traffic? Going mainstream is not as easy as one might think, the web is littered with thousands of websites and web services that failed to become even marginally popular let alone hit the social mainstream. With that, based on what was discussed this past weekend here is a quick outline of what I think Twitter could do to take their service and business to the next level.

• First, don’t mess with the main Twitter interface - let the micro-blogging / Tweets remain the core focus of the website. In order to create a successful (and profitable) web business you have to do two things: 1)do something different or 2) do something better. Since micro-blogging is still in its infancy Twitter accomplishes both of these right now - no need to fix what isn’t broken (not counting the downtime of course).
• Secondly, blow out the social aspects of Twitter, let users create full profiles that they are used to seeing on other social networking type websites. Don’t overdo it but make it so it becomes an extension of the micro-blogging. For example, show most popular tweets, expanded groups (which Twitter mentioned was in the works), have better location / photo integration, create a private twittering section…seriously the list goes on and on.
• Also, it has to be mentioned…since the technical issues will always be in the back of peoples minds, make sure to setup the infrastructure in a way that wont affect the main service. For example, Twitter.com/khawe would stay as the twitter hub while the social networking component lives on a sub-domain (e.g. khawe.Twitter.com). Creating a separate infrastructure allows for the best of both worlds, without effecting the performance of either.
• Now of course, how do you monetize such a “soon to be” mainstream web service? First and foremost let me make it clear that I do not recommend monetization the main Twitter value - the Twitter / Tweet page. Serving ads on top of the Twittering will negatively impact the user experience and the overall micro-blogging experience. However, if you do have to monetize the the main Twitter interface I would do it via overall page sponsorship…change a background, add a ’sponsored by” type ad, but nothing that becomes to intrusive or extreme. The main source of revenue would come from the deeper, social, part of the website that contains more static content that Twitter can sell ads against in the traditional CPM model.
• Lastly, You can (but I don’t recommend) create a Twitter premium option - like Pownce Pro - but how much will that really bring? Not a big fan but it is an option so I thought I would at least mention it.

Bottom line is that by creating a social network behind the micro-blogging instant communication functionality allows for a more in-depth and sticky user experience. What more can you ask for?

Ok, that is enough about Twitter for now…are you on Twitter? Be sure to follow me at Twitter.com/khawe

The Guardian has a very interesting article where they asked Vint Cerf, chief evangelist at Google to ask true technology movers and shakers what the future holds for the web and technology. The article features in-depth conversations with Chris De Wolfe (co-founder MySpace), Chad Hurley (co-founder YouTube), Biz Stone (co-founder Twitter) and may others.

Ad Age just published their conversation with IAC head honcho Barry Diller, in the wake of the splitting / spinning IAC is doing with its properties (IAC is spinning off four divisions into separate publicly traded companies). Putting aside the series of softball questions and  cookie cutter answers the one real interesting part of the whole conversation revolved around Barry’s interest in AOL. Here is how the brief AOL exchange went down:

Ad Age: Are there sizes of acquisitions you’d rule out?

Mr. Diller: Never. We’d never rule anything out. … I don’t want to set the world up for surprises. We’ve tended to surprise people every year with something. So I hope there’ll be a few more, but hopefully not shock.

Ad Age: There’s still talk that Jeffrey Bewkes could break up Time Warner. Would you ever be interested in AOL?

Mr. Diller: We’ve talked over the years about our interest in AOL and never been able to get Time Warner to engage with us. I’ve always said AOL is great opportunity for somebody. When and if Warner doesn’t want it, I’ll certainly be at the door.

So why is this so interesting? Of course IAC, and any online focused company would be interested in AOL and in fact AOL’s deep list of properties combined with solid traffic and relatively efficient adverting models would fit perfectly into Mr. Diller’s future / current online plans. All IAC needs is a nice influx of cash in order to offer an amount Time Warner couldnt refuse to get AOL off their hands…oh wait isn’t that what IAC is planning? Mr. Diller has shown over the years that he loves brand names and what brand is bigger then AOL (well at least one he can afford to buy)?

Regardless of whether or not IAC buys AOL it is safe to say that someone, somewhere, will snap it up. AOL has been dragging down Time Warner for years and I am sure that sooner or later AOL will be sold off - my guess would be 2nd or 3rd quarter of 2008 at the latest.

Jaiku, the social media company based out of Finland, announced today on their website that Google is acquiring the small startup. Jaiku, which has been competing for the past few months with Twitter and Pownce for global attention, is not commenting on the terms of the deal or specific plans. Jaiku posted a vague and bland Q&A about the purchase on their website. I was one of Jaiku’s first beta users and have wrote about them on numerous occasions. I am a little stunned by the purchase since I was never floored by Jaiku’s features or technology. In fact I was hoping that Google would have bought Twitter since I have been a huge fan (and user) for some time. But, hey my stock isn’t in the hundreds so I will trust Google knows what they are doing. ***10.10.2007 update*** Got an email from Jaiku this morning announcing the deal: Wonderful Jaiku users, Exciting news, Jaiku is joining Google! While its too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you’ll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now. But fear not! All our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will continue to be able to invite your friends to Jaiku. We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition at http://jaiku.com/help/google Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

In what was the hottest rumor the past week or so, MSNBC announced today that they have bought social news service Newsvine for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition by MSNBC was the first in its 11 year history and one of the few times a major news site has bought a social media player. MSNBC plans on keeping the Newsvine brand and website separate from MSNBC.com. But, obviously expect to see certain components of each website integrated into the other.

Newsvine is one of the better sources for new - both regional and international - and has always been viewed as a “grown-up” version of Digg / Reddit / Stumbleupon, etc. Newsvine also allows its visitors to write articles, comment and post links - all of which make it more of a community than a news aggregator. The acquisition will also give MSNBC.com some much needed traction in their competition with leading news sites CNN.com, USAToday.com, Yahoo News, etc.

The Wall Street Journal has a great article that discusses the challenges the current Internet infrastructure faces as it continues to grow exponentially. The article talks with such online luminaries like Larry Roberts and Len Bosack about how we are currently using “last-generation” technology that has gone virtually unchanged for over 40 years and how the explosion in broadband content could slow down or even cripple the Internet as we know it. A definite must read…

Microsoft, in its never ending quest to catch-up to Google, is releasing an update to its search product Live.com with the focus on improving the technology behind the search results. From what I have seen and heard this update is a giving users of Live Search a much better searching experience. But, will Live really steal market share from Google? Search = Google and that has not changed for years. If anything I see search engines that focus on specific verticals making the true headway. Here is the full press release:

REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Microsoft Corp. is releasing an update to Live Search (http://www.live.com) centered on improvements to core search technology and deeper advancements in the vertical search areas of entertainment, shopping, local and health. Collectively, these improvements mark a quality milestone based on the company’s focus on delivering a better search experience for consumers and advertisers.

“With this update to Live Search, our engineering focus is on the areas that matter most to our 185 million consumers who use our service every month. We have made dramatic progress in delivering a better search experience to our customers,” said Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of the Search and Advertising Platform Group at Microsoft. “We know what kinds of things consumers are searching for, and we have invested in those key high-interest verticals, including entertainment, shopping, health and local search. With the core platform in place we intend to win customers and earn their loyalty one query at a time.”

The majority of Live Search customer feedback has focused on improving overall search relevance to deliver richer and deeper results and investing in differentiated experiences in high-interest consumer areas such as entertainment, shopping, health and local search.

Richer and Deeper Results

Microsoft’s efforts toward satisfying its Live Search customers can be grouped into a few key areas:

– Over fourfold increase in index size. Nearly 20 percent of customer
challenges came from the long tail of the Web, indicating a need for
broader coverage to help ensure that the right results can be returned
for the highest percentage of queries. The new Live Search has exceeded
the goal of quadrupling its range of coverage, setting a foundation
that will enable it continue to keep pace with the growth of the Web.

– Substantial improvements in understanding query intent. The new Live
Search does a much better job in predicting the intent of the query to
return the best results possible. New investments improve the search
service’s ability to read and understand queries in a way that more
accurately determines intent despite common problems such as spelling
errors, stop words, punctuation and synonyms.

– Significant enhancements to core algorithms. The new Live Search has
incorporated more user click-stream data to inform ranking and
relevancy processes, yielding more relevant results across queries.

– Increased focus on query refinement. Intelligence in the back end
designed to help customers arrive at improved query suggestions helps
Live Search deliver the best results, even making proactive changes to
the query in cases where the engine is confident of the customer’s
intent.

– New Web data extraction model. Core search innovation enables Microsoft
to build rich vertical experiences that update on the fly. This
technology extracts information from across the Web on products
(including ratings and reviews); businesses (including locations,
contact information, photos, hours of operation, ratings and reviews);
celebrities (including buzz, images and videos); and more.

– Expansion of Rich Answers. Based on user feedback that sometimes people
are just looking for a specific fact or answer, Live Search’s improved
Answers platform provides specialized responses to queries about
specific areas such as weather, images, celebrities and entertainment,
sports, stocks, Yellow Pages, maps or quick facts from Encarta®. This
specialized content has been more deeply integrated into the main
search experience to add to custom searches such as images and mapping.

Additional improvements to the service include a new, cleaner user interface that makes the results pages easier to read and use; a more robust Answers platform that provides instant access to information from trusted sources while increasing relevancy; and organization of results pages based on the high-interest search verticals of entertainment, shopping, local and health on one page.

High-Interest Verticals

With up to 40 percent of searches falling into the categories of entertainment, shopping, health and local search, the new Live Search has made deep investments to deliver specialized content presented in a compelling way across these key vertical search areas:

– Entertainment. Helps customers stay informed on the latest
entertainment news with celebrity instant answers accompanied by images
and a new video search feature that offers smart motion previews, facts
and buzz and new xRank celebrity ranking.

– Shopping. Helps customers easily find and discover products along with
reviews, guides, prices and other relevant information.

– Health. New health search functionality intuitively organizes and
surfaces the most relevant online health content from trusted sources,
allowing consumers to refine searches faster and with more accuracy.

– Local. Allows customers to search local business listings for help with
making informed decisions based on rich details and reviews.

With improvements across the core search experience and infrastructure as well as new experiences and specialized content in key, high-interest vertical areas, the new Live Search puts in place a platform that enables Microsoft to keep pace with customer demand and continue to deliver new and innovative search experiences across a range of scenarios and devices. An early example of these new experiences is the mobile search client, a Software plus Services implementation for the mobile phone that puts the power of the Live Search service in the palm of the hand. Speech-based search combines powerful speech-recognition software on the mobile phone with the Live Search service over the Internet. There is still plenty of room for innovation, and Live Search is well poised to lead in this arena.

Steve Case, founder of AOL, is putting his money behind a new online payment company that will attempt to go up against heavyweight PayPal. The new company, named Revolution Money (I better not hear the Beatles song in their commercials), promises to let users transfer money for free as well as offering a credit card to merchants with significantly lower fees. The credit card, named RevolutionCard, will have an interchange fee of 0.5% which is significantly less than the 1.9% average offered by other cards. AOL has signed on as a initial partner (surprise!) and will let users make payments and transfer through its AIM instant messaging system for free.

Revolution Money’s payment system is currently being tested, but should roll out before years end. I am actually really excited to test this, especially the AIM component. Should be interesting how PayPal responds to the latest threat to their market domination.

Apollo Group, which is best know for their for-profit University of Phoenix, announced late yesterday that they would be acquiring online ad network Aptimus for close to $48 million. By acquiring Aptimus, the Apollo Group will have be able to maintain their marketing push but in a much more cost effective manner.

Aptimus, based in San Francisco, will continue to provide its services to advertisers and web publishers, their clients include Proctor & Gamble, Nokia, Dell, Vonage and many more.

Apollo Group is one of the largest advertisers online and considering the consolidation of major ad networks it shouldn’t come as to big of a surprise that advertisers would step in and scoop up what is left. Apollo did make it a point to say they will continue their existing relationships with competing ad networks