Next month, I will be traveling to the Googleplex to be a presenter for their “MarketingTalks@Google” series. This is an awesome invitation, spawned from the “Analytics According to Captain Kirk” segment in my analytics training and presentations. I’ve known the staff at Google Analytics since their Urchin days, so it’s always nice to see their success and adoption into Google.
I’ll be in San Jose for Search Engine Strategies that week, presenting at two sessions; Analytics 2.0 with Analytics heavyweights Jim Sterne, Erik Peterson, and Marshall Sponder, and then a fun panel on IT for Marketers, where we de-mystify the dark secrets of IT web-speak language for Marketers. I’ll also get to moderate a panel which has the potential for a lot of fun – Black Hat v White Hat tactics with Greg Boser, Jill Whalen, Todd Freisen, Bruce Clay and Dave Naylor. I’ll wrap up the week by presenting a 4-hour training class on Analytics on Friday.
So, it made sense to schedule a time while I was in town, and I’ll speaking at Google on Tuesday the 19th, at the Mountain View location, and then conduct a small round-table discussion later in the day. Both sessions will be taped and made available on the AtGoogle Talks channel on YouTube.
Matt Bailey is the owner and founder of SiteLogic and has over a decade in the web marketing industry. He focuses on consulting and training to help companies take control of their websites and marketing strategies.
As a search engine addict, and a search engine marketer, I’ve been fascinated with the evolution of the search engine ever since I started marketing online, well over a decade ago. One search engine always attracts my attention, especially over the past two years, with great innovation and features. And no, it isn’t Google. It’s Ask.com.
Multimedia is Content
Ask got people talking early last year with its breakthrough 3-D interface. I was able to enjoy this interface to the fullest a few weeks ago when my child was doing a school report on Glenn Miller. From the Ask search results, we
were able to listen to his recordings, view video, read his biography and see pictures. We didn’t even click on any of the search results for the first 10 minutes!
The 3-D interface is one of the best innovations in search since the spider. It recognizes that images, video, and audio are content as well, and they have integrated multimedia into the search results. Maybe you’ve seen the latest commercials, which I have to say are a drastic improvement over past Ask ads. (Chicks with Swords, anyone?)
The results page now allows searchers to get information handily and preview other sites before they even click on the result. It is the first interface that truly recognizes the needs of the human searcher. We are not always looking for text, and the internet contains a multitude of good information just waiting to be found. Ask makes it easier to uncover that information.
Mobile Speech Interface
The latest Ask innovation made me stand up and take notice. Ask has gone beyond the browser boundaries with the newest search feature. Typically, mobile browsing has been a stripped-down version of the web interface, usually a simple list of links.
Last month, Ask unveiled a voice-activated feature for mobile directions. This feature allows you to speak the address when searching for directions. Within seconds, you receive your directions. Even better, you can choose driving or walking directions as a list or turn-by turn.
I can’t tell you how many times I have attempted to type in directions to a mapping program or the search interface (not while I’m driving, of course), or have been in a city and just needed to know where something was.
Ask has driven the human-computer interface deeper by allowing a more immersive experience, first with the search interface, and now with the Star Trek inspired speech interface. I am very eager to see what the Ask.com team will unleash next.
One for the Privacy Advocates: Search History
Oh, and by the way, Ask not only deletes your search history after 18 months, but allows you to step up your privacy with Ask Eraser. Your search activity is deleted within hours. Now this isn’t the search history on your browser, it’s the search history that EVERY search engine keeps on you in their database. Remember when AOL accidentally released user search histories? Other search engines haven’t been as honest about your search history, and how long they keep it.
take a look at the innovation over the past year at the Ask.com Blog. I am sure that you’ll be impressed with the dedication to the user experience.
If you haven’t used Ask.com lately, I challenge you to take a test drive for a week and use Ask as your primary search engine. Try the customization features and explore. It may not be for everyone, but it may be just right for you.
Matt Bailey is the owner and founder of SiteLogic and has over a decade in the web marketing industry. He focuses on consulting and training to help companies take control of their websites and marketing strategies.
Oops!
A few weeks ago a friend of mine told me about an “incident” that happened with his kids and a well-known search engine. The “incident” was brought about by his kids innocently typing words into the search engine, they were young enough that he didn’t think that they would use a search engine, but they did.
I found this out a few years ago; my daughter found the website dolphin.com and was asking questions about it. I asked her how she found it and she said that she typed it into the search engine. She was four.
Enter the parental responsibility mode. I am constantly on a quest to find safe ways for my children to enjoy the internet, but not find all of the crud that is out there. I’ve found resources that have let me feel more confident about their browsing, but nothing is a substitute for parental involvement.
Ask for Kids Ask for Kids
This kid-friendly search engine rates very highly in my book. The interface is bright and simple. They even tell you where Jeeves may be vacationing. There are direct links to some fun games and lots of homework help. The results could use some beefing up, but I attribute that to the filtering process.
Kidzui www.kidzui.com
This pleasant little program takes over the browser (and the computer if you like) and filters all content based on parents and teachers who determine age appropriate sites. For multiple children you can set up multiple accounts, using a picture. (The pictures are not displayed online, only on your computer). Each child will have specific content they can see, based on their age and the appropriateness of the content.
The sites are the typical PBSKids.org, Nick Jr., Disney Kids, etc. but all of the sites are displayed in a crazy interface that allows additional exploration. The interface contains multimedia clips and pictures from cartoons, TV shows (yes, The Wiggles), combined with a lot of science and nature. There are also pictures and movoe clips from actual classroom learning. The site allows children to simply follow whatever they find interesting and supports very in-depth use. I don’t think our kids got boared on that site yet, as there is so mucvh to do, either directly on Kidzui, or though the portal sites.
At the end of each week, I receive a full report of all of the websites that each child has visited, all of the images and movies that they watched and all of the search queries that they made. It gives me a little more comfort to know what they are doing, but like I said – it’s no substitute for just sitting with them or checking in once in a while.
Kidzui is still in Beta, so a lot of parental controls are not available, such as time and website restrictions (I hate Bratz). But I like what they are doing and my kids love the options that are there. there is also the function to lock down Kidzui and not allow access outside of the portal. This would stop a child from simply reducing Kidzui and opening another browser. using this feature, the only way you can shut down the program is to use the master password. This is especially handy if you have an independent child that does not like to be told “no”. However, it does make it difficult when you have an older child that needs to use the computer for homework. So, the Lock-down mode was removed, but the kids still use the program.
This got me started on a quest to find some helpful kids websites and search engines. I published that list over at Search Engine Guide as a resource. Read through the rest of the article and see if there are any that you know about that you can add to the list. Search Engines for Kids – full article.
Matt Bailey is the owner and founder of SiteLogic and has over a decade in the web marketing industry. He focuses on consulting and training to help companies take control of their websites and marketing strategies.
While people seem to enjoy the Google cartoons on holidays and other anniversaries, it looks like the Valentines Day logo hurried through with a little error.
See something a little odd? No, not the chocolate.
Spell out the word Google – yes, the “l” is missing.
Matt Bailey is the owner and founder of SiteLogic and has over a decade in the web marketing industry. He focuses on consulting and training to help companies take control of their websites and marketing strategies.
Via Kim Kraus’ increasingly unhealthy obsession with MS Dewey.
(really Kim, I am starting to become concerned)
Kim blogged yesterday about Microsoft’s new search engine MsDewey. My first thought was “interesting.” Ask finally dropped the butler, Jeeves, in order to change their image, and Microsoft has unveiled a sort of Jeeves 2.0.
I will say that I found it to be patently irritating. Sure, Ms Dewey is attractive and gets your attention right away. Of course, I don’t go to search engines to be entertained. I go to find stuff called “information.” So, anything that gets in the way of that process irritates me. It’s obvious that this was not created to be an effective means of searching the web. The search results are shown in an opaque window against a variate background.
This wasn’t made for search – this is subservient chicken search engine, or virtual bartender search results host.
It took me a few minutes to drive by this accident; however, others have not been as lucky. Kim Kraus made her second post about MsDewey today, and she is starting to show signs of an unhealthy obsession. MsDewey is flirting her husband. Kim – it’s a compliment. Isn’t that right, Eric?
Eric, really – turn off Kim’s monitor before she sends it through the wall . . .
Matt Bailey is the owner and founder of SiteLogic and has over a decade in the web marketing industry. He focuses on consulting and training to help companies take control of their websites and marketing strategies.
Google buys YouTube, the popular video sharing site, for a paltry $1.65 billion. This surprised many industry watchers as Google has typically bought start-ups before they became popular. YouTube has far surpassed expectations of popularity, which is also why the deal seems so large for Google.
Buying YouTube will also bring with it a few interesting problems. The first of which is to figure out how to monetize YouTube in ways other than ad revenue. The video site has grown significantly since is debut last year, largely by word of mouth, but did not have a monetization strategy.
The second issue will be potential copyright lawsuits. Many videos on YouTube can claim a copyright violation; however suing a start-up Internet company may not land a profitable settlement. The settlement from a large, rich search engine may be attractive now. Universal has already threatened to sue YouTube for millions, but was willing to allow videos to be available in exchange for a cut of the ad revenue.
This is the largest acquisition by Google, and it will certainly be interesting to see how YouTube will fit into Google’s larger picture.
Added: Another issue looming over both Google Video and YouTube is that of the “Slippery Slope of Censorship“. Both Google and YouTube have made news by removing “right-wing” videos based on content, yet there are many complaints about radical videos available on both video sites, such as an Iraqi video of snipers shooting at American soldiers. It’s not hard to find a video that would offend anyone; there are plenty of videos based on lampooning religion, ethnicity, political views, and so on. There is a growing organization targeting YouTube because of the political leanings of the censored videos.
However, in an open society where we do have freedom of speech, censoring only a few ideas is worse than censoring all, especially in a “free forum” such as YouTube. Once videos start to be pulled based on political and religious content, there will be no end to the open interpretion of what makes an “offensive” video. Once that happens, the popularity and quality of both video sites will diminish, as users go elsewhere to submit and find videos without censorship.
Matt Bailey is the owner and founder of SiteLogic and has over a decade in the web marketing industry. He focuses on consulting and training to help companies take control of their websites and marketing strategies.
A new service is available from Google Talk, and it blows my chances completing a Google-free week. Well, technically, I still haven’t done any Google searches though, so maybe I can still make it.
A few weeks ago, Google gave Google talk users the option of displaying “What’s Playing” as their personal message. This week, Google rolls out Music Trends, a window into the world of what people are listening.
This seems to be an interesting experiment in some form of social networking. While Yahoo Music allows you to see other user’s recommendations, this seems to mainly be a top 30 list for what’s playing in any respective genre. The default genre is Alternative – World, which set me up for feeling really old when I didn’t recognize any of the bands or titles.
I found the way to switch Genres and also to switch to Unites States only. This didn’t help me in the Alternative Category, but it did make much more sense in the rock, classic rock and punk genres.
Some of the classifications make me wonder, however. Seeing Michael Jackson’s Thriller listed under Blues, Cutting Crew listed under Classic Rock . . . something’s not right. Then, it dawns on me. There seems to be many mistakes and confusion in the file-trading services, not that I would ever use one. But I have seen that many genres and artist-songs do not match on those services, which makes me wonder about the extent of file trading and the impact on music trends, such as this.
The occasional misclassification aside, This is a fairly limited look into some long-tail studies. The list by genre simply whets the appetite. I’d really like the option to be able to see a longer list or dig into sub-genres.
Getting into a few of the genres I was comfortable with (what? No 80’s New Wave?) I felt a little more relaxed, and I accepted the inevitable of getting older. The Classic Rock category was much more to my liking – not many surprises there, FreeBird is #2.
Matt Bailey is the owner and founder of SiteLogic and has over a decade in the web marketing industry. He focuses on consulting and training to help companies take control of their websites and marketing strategies.
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Next month, I will be traveling to the Googleplex to be a presenter for their “MarketingTalks@Google” series. This is an awesome invitation, spawned from the “Analytics According to Captain Kirk” segment in my analytics training and presentations. I’ve known the staff at Google Analytics since their Urchin days, so it’s always nice to see their success and adoption into Google. 
Matt Bailey is the owner and founder of SiteLogic and has over a decade in the web marketing industry. He focuses on consulting and training to help companies take control of their websites and marketing strategies.
