What is Searchviews?

Searchviews is the company blog of Reprise Media. We impart daily insights on Search Marketing, Social Media and SEO. Read More...

Contact Us

Send us a message at searchviews@
reprisemedia.com


Search

Archives


MyBlogLog - Readers

Author Archive - Sepideh Sarem

« Previous Entries

Searchviews: Week in Review

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 11, 2008 | Share This |

searchviewslogolarge.gif

Each Friday, we bring you a roundup of the last week’s stories on Searchviews and beyond. Happy weekend reading!

On Searchviews:

Elsewhere:

Flickr Adds Video

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 10, 2008 | Share This |

flickr video

Photo sharing site Flickr this week added the ability for its paid users to upload short videos, or what it’s calling “long photos.” Like video site Vimeo, Flickr wants users to upload original content. But video length is capped at 90 seconds, which will help it distinguish itself from YouTube, et al. Flickr’s Heather Champ explains:

While this might seem like an arbitrary limit, we thought long and hard about how video would complement the flickrverse. If you’ve memorized the Community Guidelines, you know that Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of “long photos,” of capturing slices of life to share.

Gizmodo’s given it thumbs-up:

A quick test finds that the service is no more difficult than uploading photos, and it’s pretty quick to boot. Also, advanced embedding functions allow for users to choose their preferred width or height for the video and the service will calculate the dimensions and update the code accordingly. That sounds like a small touch. It is, but it’s also a pretty good one lacking in just about all video on the web.

Flickr’s strategy of keeping videos short is good, though users are up in arms over the addition of video.

Four Questions with Nasser Manesh, Frucall CTO

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 9, 2008 | Share This |

nasser manesh frucall logo

Nasser Manesh is an entrepreneur and the co-founder and CTO of Frucall, a mobile comparison-shopping site. Manesh also writes a blog at Unixica, where he comments on startup news. Searchviews asked him for his insights on mobile development and advertising. Here’s what he had to say.

Searchviews: On your blog Unixica, you recently referenced an article about the decline of mobile development. As CTO of Frucall, a mobile shopping search engine, what do you think about this report that discourages developing products just for mobile, and how has it changed the way you approach your business?

Nasser Manesh: Mobile applications have caused a lot of hype over the past decade and a lot of companies were built around making mobile applications mainstream. Unfortunately most of these companies are not around any more, and the others, for the most part, have shifted their focus in order to be able to survive. For a number of years now industry analysts have been predicting the mobile application space to be the next revolution, similar to what happened when the PC was introduced to the market and when the Web was put to mainstream, commercial use.

But this revolution has not happened in the US market, and that’s what this report is talking about. Personally I agree with most of the writer, Michael Mace, has written. He has had very high positions within Palm and PalmSource, front runners of the mobile application space, and what he says comes from first-hand experience. There are a number of reasons for where we are today, mostly inter-related, and I think US mobile carriers are at the heart of these issues.
Carriers have tried to prevent what made the Web successful from happening in the mobile space: An open and free paradigm of delivering content and applications. Access to the handset is highly guarded and the carrier wants to have a share – usually the lion’s share – of whatever a content or application owner wants to deliver to a handset.

Mobile data plans have been a source of revenue to carriers rather than a means to an end, i.e., monetizing content and applications. As a result, consumers have been reluctant to adopt and use data plans. Those who have been more curious to pay have not found enough useful applications that would justify the cost, because mobile carriers have failed to create the right ecosystem to attract third-party application developers.

All of this has resulted in a psychology of “it’s just a phone” in the US consumer market. There is a reason for hearing the term “cell phone” from the average US consumer while average European or Asian users carry “mobile devices.” What we did at Frucall was to leverage this psychology. Instead of building a fancy mobile application, we built a voice application, which users can call to get information. In the back-end, Frucall is all web API calls and integration with Internet retail services, but to the caller it’s just a phone call. People in the US are used to touch-tone applications, as pretty much all banks and large organizations operate with touch-tone services. So why not use the same for a mobile application to make it familiar? Later, we added text (SMS) services and finally mobile web. We avoided downloadable mobile applications. You can see the reasons clearly verbalized by Elia in Mace’s article. The economics of supporting a vast number of devices for such a small percentage of users simply does not make sense for a startup.

SV: You’ve also noted on your blog that monetization is very difficult in mobile. How do you think the mobile space needs to change to spur more advertising dollars and opportunities for monetization?

NM: I have to admit I’m not a big fan of advertising on mobile phones. The mobile user experience is very different from the PC – there’s less screen space and the device is constantly with the user, making the nature of mobile advertising more intrusive. Add to that the fact that the mobile device “knows” more about the user – the incoming and outgoing calls, the location of the user, and other things we usually consider private. Just how companies like Yahoo! and Google analyze the content of your hosted email to show you relevant ads on the side bar, a mobile application can analyze these more private pieces of information to serve a more targeted ad. Location-aware advertising is on the radar of many companies. Think of Tom Cruise walking in the mall in “Minority Report” and how the voices were trying to sell him things. It will become real much sooner than we think, thanks to the mobile phones we carry with us.
There are a few companies though, such as AdMob, that have adopted the same ad-brokerage model used on the Web and are serving ads for mobile web pages. Unfortunately, iPhone aside, the user experience for mobile web browsing is unpleasant and usually slow, so users keep it to the absolute minimum.

I think one aspect that is less explored is tying mobile into the web. A lot of applications have natural mobile extensions and components. We do not have to port the whole application to the mobile device just because we can; we should study the usage and see which parts of the application can be “mobilized” to add value to the end user. Obviously one monetization strategy is to charge more for those mobile components, the other is to collect data from such components that would help serving more targeted ads later on when the user is browsing the web on a PC.

For example, in the case of Frucall as a mobile comparison shopping, if the user calls Frucall to search for a Nike shoe, next time they visit the Frucall web site we can show them a sports-related ad, or an ad from Nike or a competing brand. Companies are doing a lot for behavioral targeting these days. I would like to think of the mobile components of applications as extensions that can collect more behavioral data related to a certain application. All of that, of course, is still limited by the way carriers are controlling the applications.

SV: With the overwhelming popularity of the iPhone and increasing ubiquity of more sophisticated handheld devices for US consumers, how should companies be approaching the mobile market in the United States now?

This is a tough question and what I say here is my personal view, but I think the iPhone is going to have a big impact and at this point it might make sense for some companies to only focus on the iPhone and forget about the other platforms. This is not because of Apple being behind iPhone, but because of the user experience which has made it easy – for the first time – for users to use applications on a phone. Statistics, for example, show that Google searches are 50 times more prevalent on iPhones than other phones. That’s because there is less friction in using search on an iPhone. I am not particularly a fan of Apple’s model of controlling application distribution, bit still it’s much better than the traditional carrier model, and the fact that AT&T has agreed to Apple’s way of application distribution is a huge leap forward. There are some limitations within the iPhone SDK but I’m sure they will be resolved over time. It’s Unix underneath, after all, so capabilities such as multiprocessing are built in. It’ll just take some time.

There are two other platforms currently showing traction or at least hype – Google Android and LiMo. Personally, I expected more from Android. Creating the Open Handset Alliance was a very good move by Google and the promise of an open source mobile operating system is a good - and only a company with high levels of influence such as Google can pull it off. But in retrospect it looks like they were not ready for the prime time. Things are moving very slowly.

LiMo, on the other hand, is backed by a number of phone manufacturers and has actual handsets. The problem there is that LiMo supporters don’t come from an application software background – they are phone manufacturers. So LiMo seems to lack the developer ecosystem to add value to it. Look at how many people are trying to do things around Android, even though there is no phone out there. That’s what Google can do. Limo is ahead of Android in terms of availability, but the development support is practically non-existent, which in the long run can kill it.

Note that most of the things I’m covering is consumer-oriented. There’s a whole different mobile market out there for enterprise users, and Blackberry has done a great job there. Apple is aggressively targeting that market through their integration projects with Microsoft and Cisco and there will be application opportunities there, but as usual, enterprise sales in general is much tougher so I think small companies and startups have a smaller chance of making money in that market.

SV: Your company, Frucall, has a social network element, with users able to create profiles and connect to friends, as well as presence on Facebook via an application that allows users to share product lists with their friends. What were your considerations in creating your Facebook app? Do you think it’s more valuable for new companies to build in social network capabilities or for them to leverage existing user bases on highly-trafficked sites?

NM: I certainly think social networks are a viable marketing strategy. Obviously one has to find the right angle and come up with something that fits naturally within both their application and a social network’s expected behavior, otherwise it will fail. But if there are aspects in an application where sharing make sense, leveraging the social networks will reduce both the user acquisition cost and time. In older days the ACPU (Average Cost Per User) which is an indication of how much money one should set aside to get users, was in $10-$20 range. A good, useful web application with clear messaging and meaningful value can expect less than that, maybe in $3-$7 range. But that’s still too high – getting a million users will cost you a few million dollars. So what do you do? You make your application viral, to let users bring in new users without you spending. Now, you can either build the viral elements inside your application, or you can leverage the tools and the platform that inherently exists within a social network and just create the right hooks between your application and that platform. It’s still easier said than done though. It’s been very hard to predict how users react to these viral mini applications added to their social network such as the ones on Facebook. Most of the ones that are very viral are not adding value (depending on how you define value); they are just for fun. The problem with the “fun” applications is that they become viral quickly, but they also die down and disappear quickly. So there is no recipe out there for tapping into a social network to do the marketing, but it’s definitely one of those things that should be on the task list of a good marketing manager to look into how they can design their marketing strategy to take advantage of social media.

Google Launches App Engine

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 8, 2008 | Share This |

google app enginef

Google yesterday announced the launch of Google App Engine, a hosting platform for web application developers. From the brand-new Google App Engine blog:

The goal is to make it easy to get started with a new web app, and then make it easy to scale when that app reaches the point where it’s receiving significant traffic and has millions of users… Google App Engine gives you access to the same building blocks that Google uses for its own applications, making it easier to build an application that runs reliably, even under heavy load and with large amounts of data… We expect most applications will be able to serve around 5 million pageviews per month. In the future, these limited quotas will remain free, and developers will be able to purchase additional resources as needed.

The service is similar to and will compete with Amazon’s S3 platform. But because Google has such extensive services that many startups take advantage of (email, docs, etc.), Read/Write Web wonders what additional reliance on Google means for startups that will use the App Engine, too:

But looking at the bigger picture, startups which use Google App Engine are essentially tying themselves into Google’s technology. They’ll need to host with Google, do their processing with Google, store their data with Google, etc. And as some people have already speculated, having a web app built and deployed with Google App Engine makes it much easier for Google to eventually acquire that web app. It does make you wonder: would you want Google to control your entire end-to-end development environment?

These are certainly important implications for startups to think about, but ultimately the promise of a free sandbox to develop and storage to do it with will likely outweigh any reservations developers might have.

More:

Europe Wants Search Engines to Delete Data Sooner

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 7, 2008 | Share This |

search engine privacy

The European Commission may soon tell search engines to delete user data within six months, the BBC reports, after a report found that search engine data storage might not do enough to protect user privacy. From the Beeb:

The report from the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party said search engine providers had “insufficiently explained” why they were storing and processing personal data to their users.

It said “search engine providers must delete or irreversibly anonymise personal data once they no longer serve the specified and legitimate purpose they were collected for”.

The report said the personal data of users should not be stored or processed “beyond providing search results” if the user had not created an account or registered with the search engine.

Currently, Google keeps data associated with users for as long as eighteen months, but then anonymizes its data logs. Google’s Public Policy blog didn’t waste any time responding to the EC:

We believe that data retention requirements have to take into account the need to provide quality products and services for users, like accurate search results, as well as system security and integrity concerns. We have recently discussed some of the many ways that using this data helps improve users’ experience, from making our products safe, to preventing fraud, to building language models to improve search results. This perspective — the ways in which data is used to improve consumers’ experience on the web — is unfortunately sometimes lacking in discussions about online privacy.

Though Google acknowledges that discussion about online privacy when it comes to search and its other products is needed, it doesn’t actually initiate the dialogue or take a real position in this post. Understandable - now that Google owns DoubleClick and will have its hand in more targeted advertising, more user privacy doesn’t help its bottom line. Same goes for Yahoo and Microsoft.

More:

Searchviews: Week in Review

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 4, 2008 | Share This |

searchviewslogolarge.gif

Each Friday, we bring you a roundup of the last week’s search and social media news. Happy weekend reading!

On Searchviews:

And Elsewhere:

MySpace Music Teams Up With Big Labels

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 3, 2008 | Share This |

myspace music

MySpace will turn MySpace Music into a joint venture with three of the four major record labels (EMI is sitting things out, at least for now). The new service will provide free, ad-supported streams; shareable, customized playlists; and DRM-free ad-supported or paid downloads. From the New York Times:

Visitors to the site will be able to listen to free streaming music, paid for with advertising, and share customized playlists with their friends. They will also be able to download tracks to play on their mobile devices, putting the new site in competition with similar services like Apple, Amazon and eMusic.

A subscription-based music component, where users pay a monthly amount for unlimited access to downloadable tracks, is also being considered, [MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe] said.

“This is really a mega-music experience that is transformative in a lot of ways,” he said. “It’s the first service that offers a full catalog of music to be streamed for free, with full community features, to be shared with all of your friends.”

MySpace has long been a great site for music discovery but has had trouble monetizing that. The social network was sued by Universal in 2006 (presumably that lawsuit’s being dropped since Universal will now be part of MySpace Music) and has a host of competitors in the music discovery space, among them sites like RCRDLBL and Muxtape. And undoubtedly, MySpace wants to capture some of the ever-growing online music sales business; Apple has just superpassed Wal-Mart as the top music retailer in the United States.

Google to Sell Performics, Lay Off 300 at DoubleClick

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 2, 2008 | Share This |

google performics doubleclick layoffs

Google’s DoubleClick growing pains are making themselves clear today, as the company announced it is selling part of  Performics, the search marketing arm of its DoubleClick acquisition, Search Engine Land reports. From the Google Blog:

Recently we completed this process for the DoubleClick Performics businesses, and have decided to split them into two separately-run business units: Affiliate Marketing and Search Marketing.

It’s clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business. Maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to Google’s mission and core to the trust we ask from our users. For this reason, we plan to sell the Performics search marketing business to a third party. We believe this will allow us to maintain objectivity and the search marketing business to continue to grow and innovate and serve its customers. While we have not yet identified a buyer, we’ve received preliminary interest from a number of our current partners. Search Marketing will continue to run as a separate entity until the division is sold.

And in its first layoffs ever, Google will reportedly bid goodbye to a quarter of its American employees at newly acquired DoubleClick, though the company’s mum about the exact number of axed jobs right now. The NYT reports:

The cuts represent about a quarter of DoubleClick’s American work force of about 1,200. The company has about 1,500 employees worldwide, and the chief executive of Google, Eric E. Schmidt, has suggested that job cuts would also affect DoubleClick’s overseas operations at a later date.

Google declined to confirm the number of layoffs.

In a statement, the company said: “Since our acquisition of DoubleClick closed on March 11, we have been working to match and align DoubleClick employees in the U.S. with our organizational plan for the business. As with many mergers, this review has resulted in a reduction in headcount at the acquired company.”

Yahoo Mobile’s oneSearch Goes 2.0, Now with Voice

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 2, 2008 | Share This |

yahoo mobile onesearch vlingo

Yahoo is beefing up its mobile capabilities, today announcing key improvements in mobile search. According to the company’s press release, it will blow out its user-facing products, create standards for mobile widgets, and continue to develop monetization in the mobile space.

More specifically, Search Engine Land notes Yahoo is opening up its oneSearch platform, and also cut a deal with voice-search technology company Vlingo. Yahoo led a $20 million round of financing for Vlingo, which makes speech recognition software that will better position Yahoo against Google and other competitors. Mashable notes that speech recognition will likely become more integral to mobile search:

It’s evident that speech recognition is going to be pushed as a driving force for a good portion of development regarding mobile search over the next few months, to say the least. Perhaps Yahoo will even apply Vlingo more directly to some of its other mobile applications as well.

April Fools Day: Google’s gDay MATE and a Day Without Google

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 1, 2008 | Share This |

alltop seo<img alt=

Happy April Fools’ Day! Google’s gag this year is gDay MATE, which searches the future. They had us at “fuzzy measure analysis,” and we are big fans also of “language recession analysis.” From Google:

The core technology that powers gDay™ is MATE™ (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation).

Using MATE’s™ machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques developed in Google’s Sydney offices, we can construct elements of the future.

Google spiders crawl publicly available web information and our index of historic, cached web content. Using a mashup of numerous factors such as recurrence plots, fuzzy measure analysis, online betting odds and the weather forecast from the iGoogle weather gadget, we can create a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now.

We can use this technique to predict almost anything on the web – tomorrow’s share price movements, sports results or news events. Plus, using language regression analysis, Google can even predict the actual wording of blogs and newspaper columns, 24 hours before they’re written!

To rank these future pages in order of relevance, gDay™ uses a statistical extrapolation of a page’s future PageRank, called SageRank.

Be sure to check out the “Beta Testimonials” at the right side of the gDay MATE page.

Today is also the day Alt Search Engines (via ReadWriteWeb) reprises its annual “Day Without Google,” during which web users are encouraged to use any engine but the big G - which incidentally, according to Search Engine Watch, represents 69% of the online advertising market after its DoubleClick merger was approved.

« Previous Entries