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Media Convergence: Hollywood Gets Hip to this Internet Thing

Noah Mallin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:19:09 +0000

Previously on SearchViews, I castigated the music industry for its shortsighted response to music downloading and online music sharing in general. The film industry has been luckier in part because film files are comparatively massive and harder to share easily and in part by benefiting from seeing the experience of their music industry colleagues struggle with a consumer that doesn’t want the formats they keep pushing.

Today TechCrunch broke the news that a group of big Hollywood muckety-mucks – essentially all of the major studios save for Disney – are getting together next week to announce shared standards online for movie file interoperability. Specifically we are talking about the thorny issues of digital rights management (known to you and I as copy protection) and software formats so that everyone is ofereing the same general limits and access. Theoretically this should open the doors to an increase in online movie sales and legitimate downloads as everyone will be operating and endorsing the same standards. What’s not clear is why Disney has yet to sign up.

After the initial backbiting it’s heartening to see the industry figure out that they have more to gain by standing together and embracing the future while they still have time to set the agenda.

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Social Media: Technorati Expands its Search Niche, Becoming Mini-Google

Noah Mallin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:58:35 +0000

Technorati has always been a strange beast – neither fish nor fowl. Often mentioned in the same breath as Digg and Delicious it’s used by many passively as an aggregator of blog postings. Here’s how Technorati describes their mission:

Technorati is the recognized authority on what’s happening on the World LiveWeb, right now. The Live Web is the dynamic and always-updating portion of the Web. We search, surface, and organize blogs and the other forms of independent, user-generated content (photos, videos, voting, etc.) increasingly referred to as “citizen media.”

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SEM: The View Beyond the Search Engine Marketing Navel

Noah Mallin — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:15:22 +0000

I’m not the first and I won’t be the last to suggest that there is a tendency in the world of search marketing - in which I and probably you dwell – to get caught up in the common knowledge and language of our industry to the detriment of communicating with the outside world. There is a whole universe out there of marketers, PR people, industry executives and others who don’t know enough about search engine marketing yet to really understand how powerful it is. There are also plenty of folks who know just enough to be dangerous. Part of the job of a search marketer is to evangelize in a way laypeople can understand.

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Weekly Search Roundup: We Text You with This Week’s Search VIP Choices…Before The Convention

Noah Mallin — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:51:39 +0000

Another week went by with the world on edge – what will SearchViews pick as their weekly roundup articles? By extension, what will be the search industry chatter in the boardrooms, bedrooms and emergency rooms across the nation? Well, wait no more – daddy’s got your fix of the sweet stuff right here – to the ticker!

Gates – He’s Pulling One Last Job and This Time it’s Personal

So you thought that ex-Microsoft Chieftain Bill Gates had retired to jet around the world with Warren Buffett and Bono helping the needy like a filthy rich version of the Superfriends? Turns out that he’s had his own secret lab deep inside Microsoft and he’s working on search. You’ve gone and pissed off the wrong company, Google!

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Search Advertising: Is Google Using the Election to Set Up an Advertising Searchtatorship?

Noah Mallin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:44:33 +0000

Google has made a big to-do over several election related product launches lately – most recently with their dedicated Power Readers section of Google Reader that aggregates stories handpicked by Obama and McCain’s campaigns (what, no Bob Barr and Nader?) as well as high-profile political reporters. There is also a Google Maps election maps mash-up thingamajig. Naturally Google wants to make sure the public at large and not just us residents of Searchistan know about it so they’ve gone and advertised some of these offerings on their search results pages against generic election search terms. So, public service right?

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Search News: Reprise Media at MediaPost’s Online Minute MashUp

Noah Mallin — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:06:56 +0000

That was me at MediaPost’s Online Minute MashUp yesterday at Riverside Park’s nifty Boat Basin on 79th Street in New York - I was the one with the customized nametag that read “I’m actually anti-social.” Of course nothing could be further from the truth as I was joined by Reprise Media’s Director of Marketing Anthony (”It’s pronounced how it’s spelled”) Iaffaldano who knows absolutely everyone. Not to mention their dogs, which were in abundance at this favored spot for canine cavorting.

Speaking of mash-ups, in the picture above from last night’s event, I’m the one who looks like the evil hellspawn of Burt Reynolds and Eraserhead. Anthony’s the guy on the right. The shirts? Striped for maximum monitor resolution. The cool pic is by Just an Online Minute blogger extraordinaire Kelly Samardak, you can see more here.

A balmy evening, a river breeze, strong cheap drinks, and good company all combined for a great night out and lots of interesting conversation.

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Social Media: Katie Couric is Cool, at Least Online

Noah Mallin — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:31:35 +0000

Yes, I know, Katie Couric hasn’t exactly set the world on fire as anchor of the CBS Evening News. One of the main reasons for the tepid response has been her desire to present the news in a serious newscaster-y way that has essentially neutered whatever personality had been on display previously.

Enter comedian Harry Shearer, the man responsible for a plethora of voices on the Simpsons, played bass in Spinal Tap, and delights millions of listeners on NPR. On his dedicated section of humor website MyDamnChannel, Shearer has been posting “Found Objects” — surreptitiously obtained satellite feeds of news personalities prepping off-air but with the cameras rolling. Once posted they invariably make their way through the Internet, reposted and linked to by bloggers, and on MySpace and YouTube.

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Online Marketing: Hey Music Business – Learn How to Market Online Already!

Noah Mallin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:41:33 +0000

Ah the record business. For a group of people who thrive on being hip, they just don’t get the Internet. Now the typical music mogul will say that they get it just fine, mostly in the rear. The Internet is where people go to steal money from them. Instead of whining like little babies perhaps they should look at their own sales and revenue figures. Even better they should try to apply some of the marketing lessons from search and social media.

According to the Record Industry Association of America’s own figures, more people than ever before are downloading singles and albums as well as ringtones and other items on the Internet. The online segment that in 2005 accounted for less than 10% of industry revenue counted for 23% in 2007.

Yes, but revenue is down overall they might say. True dat, but can this really be laid at the feet of file sharers, Muxtape, and CD burning? There are two things happening: First, a whole generation has grown up without reverence for the album format. They like a song, they download the song. The shift to single tracks from albums is actually a return to the record landscape that predominated until the late 1960s when the album began to dominate. The margin on albums is higher than on single tracks so the labels would prefer a return to the old days.

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Search News: SearchViews Announces Support For Google’s Free the Airwaves Campaign and Petition

Noah Mallin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:34:03 +0000

We are joining with Google, Microsoft, Intel, Dell, HP, Philips Electronics and many other companies in calling on the FCC to rule that the spectrum which television broadcasters will be relinquishing in 2009 be used for universal wireless broadband online access. Our belief is that this is key to online innovation, competitiveness, and the continued growth of new technology in the United States.

We acknowledge that as search marketers we stand to gain from increased Internet usage and penetration but this is a case where society gains as well. We believe in the Internet as a great leveler where an individual has the ability to be heard loud and clear on the same level as the mightiest corporation or government entity. Opening up access to people who have been underserved is adding more voices to the great marketplace of ideas and goods. It’s a plus for knowledge, for commerce, and even for democracy.

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Weekly Search Roundup: This Week’s Search Stories Slapped on Their Sunburned Shoulders for Your Amusement

Noah Mallin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:12:38 +0000

Olympics fever continued to lay much of the nation low as the dog days of Summer stagger through mid-August. Will tomorrow’s children ask about 9-year old Chinese girls competing in gymnastics, or Russian tanks rolling into Georgia, or that election stuff with that old guy and that celebrity guy when they look back at this week in their history Kindles? I think it’s more likely they’ll want to know where Grandma was when Gmail and Netflix were down. To the ticker!

Ad Planner Favors Google? Gambling in Casablanca? Shocked I tell you…

John Battelle decided to see what would happen when he replaced users regular coffee with Folger’s. Oh I’m sorry, I mean Comscore’s monetized reporting with Google’s Ad Planner free product. The result? Ad Planner had a tendency to favor sites that served Google AdSense. Hard to believe…

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