Every time I log into Yahoo! (my homepage), I get this new Yahoo! homepage test page:

So what do you think? I like the old one more personally, but I think it is just becuase I am used to it.

Posted by James at 07:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Random posts from a stolen WiFi connection...

The Easy Bake Meth Lab

&

The Microsoft iPod Package Video

[Bonus: Banned Mastercard Ad]

Posted by James at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I am in-between places, so my internet access is limited-ish. For that reason I won’t be posting too often for the next couple weeks. But I will try to get a post in when I can.

Now I am going to surf around a bit before this person sees me stealing their wireless connection.

I love you guys.

Posted by James at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just to follow up on my earlier post about our company taking on another, more personal, corporate blog.

The meeting went very well. Better than expected actually. Very exciting things to come.

And that’s all I have to say about that…(for now)

Posted by James at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Looks like there is one less million dollar Ferarri Enzo in the world today.

The LA Times reports that an Enzo travelling at 120 MPH on PCH in Malibu lost control, went airborne, and struck a power pole 5 to 10 feet off the ground.

The car was totaled. The passenger (if there really was one) had minor injuries. The drive fled the scene (if the passenger isn't really the driver). I wonder he is getting ready for the Gumball…

See the news video here.

Posted by James at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought it would be a good night to check out the latest progress on my two favorite Million Dollar Homepage knock-offs – Web20MillionDollarHomepage.com and SmashMyViper.com.

First off, SmashMyViper.

I just checked out the most recent damage video from SmashMyViper – they drilled holes in the hood (again) and the dashboard and made various key marks on the car. During the video the mentioned that the replacement cost of the hood was $17,000 – and the hood has a few holes in it already.

So, with all of this damage, what is the total amount of money raised? $5,900. Ouch. And strangely the SmashMyViper girls were not in the latest damage video – I hope that doesn’t mean the boys are running out of money :)

Pixel orders at SMV seem to be slowing, and a loss of momentum is not a good thing in a buzz driven market.

Which brings me to my homeboy Srinivasan and the Web20MillionDollarHomepage.

Now remember, I like Srinivasan, not for his idea but because he seems like a generally nice guy with a dream and I respect him for that. He also was nice enough to post follow-up comments after the blog comment campaign he ran to get the site off the ground.

But with all of that work, how much has the Web20MillionDollarHomepage made so far? Sadly, $300 – the same amount he had made when he originally posted on this blog. That means that the page never even got the enough buzz to get off of the ground. Not good.

So what’s up Srinivasan? What is your theory on your lack of success so far? And how are you going to make this work?

Oh, but to Srinivasan credit, he did get a reply from Guy Kawasaki regarding their thoughts on the new “focused curiosity advertising” landscape…I just wish he would have posted the entire reply, not just the part that makes him look good.

So, what can we get out of all of this? I would say that it shows us that a) the million dollar concept was a one off, and b) the market for pixel ads is not showing the growth that pixel ad sites would like to see, oh yeah, and c) pixel ad sites should try the real Web 2.0 version of their idea – the $0 homepage.

You might laugh at the idea, but if you gave away space on your site for free, but allowed people to pay you if they want, I bet you would make more than you are making now. Seriously – a Google PageRank 4 or 5 inbound link can be worth some cash to a text link ad buyer these days. You have the PageRank, now why don’t you make some money from that?

Also, if done right, you can get a buzz going from the companies that you are targeting in the first place. Who wouldn't want a link if they were free? And if you could pay a little more for a bigger pixel ad, on a site that has a good amount of buzz traffic, why wouldn't you spend a few bucks? Think about it, it might save your business.

Srinivasan, are you listening? That one was for free bud. :)

Posted by James at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Tomorrow I am going to sit down with my COO and pitch and hopefully start planning our company’s third, and most important blog. Our first two blogs were created to help our customers and our affiliates, and fit more into the informational blog category. I hope this new blog will be more personal - a window for the world to look into our extraordinary company.

I picture the blog as a place where our top management will be able to openly communication with customers, business partners, business analysts, the media, competitors, and potential partners and clients. I also see it as a place where we can tell our company’s remarkable story – not on a static, boring “about us” Web page, but as it happens.

The question is, are we ready to bare our company’s soul to the world? Are we willing to take the time to do something remarkable? Are we able to take the possible criticism, questions and change that come along with this blog?

I think we are ready, willing and able – but we will see what the big guy has to say tomorrow. :)

Posted by James at 07:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I think all of the PPC companies are seeing big dollar signs when they think about the old media world and all of the inefficient spending in the TV, print, and radio world. Google has already purchased a company that will give them the ability to let AdWords advertisers secure radio ads. Now it looks like they are trying to get AdWords users to toss money into print ads.

Check out this is the email I got today:

Subject: Update on opportunity to participate in print advertising auction

Hello James,

I wanted to update you on Google's ongoing auction for advertising space
in some leading print magazines, including Martha Stewart Living, PC
World, and Entrepreneur. We've recently extended the deadline for bid
submission to February 24th, 2006 to allow more advertisers to submit
their bids. As a US AdWords advertiser, you can visit
http://www.google.com/printadsauction, browse through available
publications, and bid for ad space at whatever price you'd like. If
your bid is a winner in the auction, we'll notify you and work with you
to deliver print-ready advertisements to the publishers.

At Google we're constantly trying to improve and extend our AdWords
platform in ways that best address the needs of our advertisers. From
time to time we test our ideas publicly so advertisers like you can tell
us which features and pilots should become permanent fixtures of
AdWords. We're currently looking into ways to complement the
advertising you do with us online with other media options. As a part
of that effort, we're testing the viability of an auction model in print
media.

If you have any questions about this test, please send them to
pubads-support@google.com and our dedicated team will get back to you
right away.

Best regards,

Ann Marie
The Google AdWords Team

Man, Google is really extending its reach, eh? I mean, they become the “biggest media company in the world” and the next thing you know they are an ad agency. (Mark my words, Google will purchase an ad agency in the next year.)

The sad thing is, this is all being done out of a desire to make more money, not help clients. Google is trying to take companies from the measurable ROI world of PPC to the abstract ROI world of traditional media – a media form that many would agree is ineffective and wasteful.

But hey, go Google. If you want to start down that road, more power to you. I know there are plenty of cash rich and brain cell poor marketing directors out there that will want to hop on the bandwagon.

My question is, how much money does Google have to make before they turn the “oo” into a couple of spinner rims?

Posted by James at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Over at the Gumball 3000 Rally blog there is a great post with a review of the Koenigsegg CC8S from British car show Top Gear. The car is Swedish, so it has a great Scandinavian design aura about it. The doors themselves are something to behold.

Did I mention it is ridiculously fast? Try 0-60 in 3 seconds.

This car makes me go crazy.

Posted by James at 07:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I ran across this post at the Online Marketing Blog that really made me laugh.

I don’t think it is a shock to anyone who has been around Search Engine Watch’s Danny Sullivan that Danny can be a bit of a goof. Danny is quite a singer – in a William Hung kind of way.

This new WebMasterRadio.fm promo is a great example of Danny’s American Idol prowess.

Enjoy!

Posted by James at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I ran across Dave Naylor’s new blog today and I love it. This blog is a bit more personal than the other one – which is great because he is a really nice fella.

One of the coolest things about the blog is the use of hilarious cartoon characters, which he calls mini-me’s, that are pretty damn good parodies of some of the top people in search. There are cartoons of Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer, Greg Boser, Mikkel deMib Svendsen, along with others.

Definitely check out the story about Dave riding the mechanical bull in his underpants in New Orleans – classic!

Posted by James at 06:52 PM | Permalink

Alright – full disclosure, I am a vegetarian. I have been one for over a decade, so McDonalds’s doesn’t really do much for me. I have no real positive affinity to the golden arches, so I come into this post with a more negative view about McDonald’s than the millions of overweight American who love the fat filled goodness that lies between Ronald’s tasty buns.

I am passionate about blogging and the power of corporate blogging, and that is why I am making this post. When I see one of the largest companies in the world stepping into the blogosphere I am going to have an opinion about it.

Enough disclosure - on to the post…

McDonalds has once again entered the blogosphere, this time (hopefully) with better intentions than its ad agency contrived Lincoln French Fry Blog. The McDonald’s Corporate Responsibility Blog is intended to open dialogue with McDonald’s customers and shed light on all of the great things that McDonald’s is up to.

The blog is authored by Bob Langert, the Senior Director for Corporate Social Responsibility at McDonald’s. Looks like a nice enough guy, and fairly health (from the neck up anyway). I wonder how often he eats at McDonald’s. Bob?

The navigational categories on the blog are Balanced, Active Lifestyles, Community, Environment, People Policies & Programs, Responsible Purchasing, and Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Just from those categories, this blog shows the potential of going one of two directions. The first is to be a PR factory for McDonald’s, where they spend a lot of time tooting their own horn about the wonderful things they do. With the size of McDonald’s, I would hope they have a lot of horn tooting to do. If they cannot come up with a wonderful story about their company on a daily basis, there is something wrong.

But telling people all about why McDonald’s is so f-ing neato is totally the wrong thing for Mickey Dee’s to do. It will come off as insincere, and it avoids the biggest issue of them all. Why is McDonald’s still leading the pack in selling fast food that decreases the life expectancy of its regular eaters?

It is the big ass, stinky elephant sitting in the middle of the room, and if the McDonald’s blog does not attack that issue head on, then their attempt at “transparency” is a sham.

So what will the McDonald’s blog do in the end? Will they recognize that their mass-produced, low quality food is killing its regular customers, or will they keep pointing around the room saying “but look at this great thing we did?”

I hope the former, but I would bet on the latter.

So if you are out there Bob Langert, let’s see you recognize that big ass elephant. Even better, leave a comment and let me know that you are actually “joining in the conversation.”

Remeber that your name and reputation are on the line here Bob, don't let McDonalds drag you through the grease trap.

Posted by James at 05:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Have you ever wanted to see where all of those great Web 2.0 companies are located on a Google Map?

Me neither!

But hell, I didn't want a pair of roller skates with sparklers attached to them last forth of July, but I got them, and lost all my leg hair.

Yeah.

Anyway - here it is people, the thing you have not been waiting for - THE WEB 2.0 INNOVATION MAP!

Posted by James at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

GODDAMN!

If this turns out to be true we all know that Yahoo! has decided to drive the ship straight into the iceberg.

There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge. ---Hunter S. Thompson

Yahoo!, for the love of God, put the cork back into the ether bottle.

Posted by James at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

And when you do, get one of these -

No joke, these are really flash drives, and they go perfectly with those birkenstocks.

Posted by James at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I want to start this post by saying that I like everyone I have ever met from Yahoo!. They are professional, interesting and fun individuals. I appreciate the things they do for me at work and I enjoy interacting with them socially as well.

With that said, a recent dinner with a Yahoo! Search Marketing rep has caused me to be very disappointed with the vision of Yahoo!'s executives, or the lack there of.

Not long after Yahoo! stated that they are happy with being #2 in the search business (a statement they quickly retracted), Yahoo! seems to have thrown in the towel in the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) world as well. It seems that Yahoo! Search Marketing (Y!SM) has decided to copy every aspect of Google AdWords.

We all know that Y!SM has started to truncate ad length, from 190 characters to 70 characters. Basically, this increases click-through-rate (money in Yahoo’s pocket) and reduces conversion after those clicks (less money in advertiser’s pockets). This change was a blatant attempt to increase clicks and dollars for Yahoo!. No cool, but I was willing to eat it and not get pissy about the change.

But this was not the end of the changes at Y!SM. It seems that Google envy has gotten the best of them – and some more changes are in the way.

I learned that come Q3 of this year, Yahoo! will change from a straight cost-per-click PPC ranking model to Google’s overly complex click-through-rate plus cost-per-click plus magical ranking algorithm ranking method. Basically, Y!SM will be switching from a transparent ranking model to a “black box” ranking model.

Now this, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. An AdWords like ranking model will help even the playing field, giving companies big and small a better chance to get good positioning in the sponsored listing results as long as they have some talent. This also gives all advertisers and incentive to write better ad copy, which is a fair way to increase click-through-rate.

I understand the business reason for this move up to this point – and I don’t have too much of a problem with it. However, the rest of the conversation with the Yahoo! rep really showed me that Yahoo! is really missing the point.

The first surprise was that Yahoo! has no plans to become more affiliate friendly. That means that affiliates of companies will continue to have to jump through hoops to have the “privilege” of working with Y!SM. What they fail to realize is that affiliates bidding on the “long-tail” keywords is one of the big advantages that Google has over them. Affiliates have to be more creative in their keyword selection, and therefore they bid on all of the less searched terms that big advertisers overlook. There are BIG dollars in the “long-tail” searched – and I am not sure why Yahoo! has such a hard time realizing this.

I know affiliates that spend a ton of money on PPC every month. They are legitimate businesses and Yahoo! needs to learn to treat them as such. Yes, there are crap Web sites out there they do not add value to a searchers experience, and they need not be included all of the time. It is the professional affiliate sites that can drive a lot of traffic that should be included. As long as Yahoo! continues to shun affiliate marketers, they will never make the “Google Money” they so desire.

The next surprise is that Yahoo! is trying to get into the branding business. They have looked at the traditional ad agencies and the millions they make off of expensive and ineffective branding campaigns and have decided that they need a piece of the action. How liberating would it be for Yahoo! to move outside of the performance based , ROI focused world of online marketers and into the big spend/big waste world of branding? You know Yahoo! executives love this idea. All you have to do is make some banners appear, give impression data, and viola! You are BRANDED! What bullshit.

I understand the concept of closing the sales loop. As more and more people turn to the Web to make buying decisions, online findability is becoming increasingly important. Big companies like Proctor and Gamble need to have a Web site that tells about their products, and they should run organic and paid search campaigns to make sure that when someone searches for Febreze, they do not run into www.febreze-kille-my-family.com at the top of the results. That just makes sense.

What I do not like is that Yahoo! wants to start getting into the pay-for-intangible-performance business. That just doesn’t sit well with me. But hey, greed is greed.

Overall, all of moves at Yahoo! draw me to one conclusion – Yahoo! has decided to throw in the towel when it comes to being remarkable. They have decided to adopt a revenue model that is a cross between their biggest and more successful competitor Google, and traditional ad agencies. They think that they have been beat. They can’t be the best. So now they will copy and stick to being second in whatever they do.

And that my fair readers, is balls.

Yahoo! is a great company that has loyal fans. They can find new and exciting ways of doing things. They can improve on their current business model and find better ways to operate. I guess what I mean to say is that there are talented people at Yahoo! who are capable of having original, remarkable ideas.

Someone just needs to remind the Yahoo! executives of that fact.

Posted by James at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yeah, call me the Search Engine Optimization expert. I just checked my Google Analytics account and found out that I am the only site on the Web that comes up in Google for "hot naked sitepals that when you type something they will say it."

I crap you not - someone typed that in.

Damn...I am good.

Posted by James at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The ad agency super orgy of spending is over. All of the commercials have been shown. The good (FedEx), the bad (Burger King), and the absolute shite (Diet Pepsi).

It seems that the clueless people over at GM have found an even more clueless ad agency to waste their $2 million this year. Yes ladies and gents, it seems that the target market for the Cadillac Escalade are people who enjoy fashion shows, and liquid metal people (just like T2!). Not really sure what the point of the ad is, but it does take me to my next point.

Now I have said multiple times that one of the biggest problems GM and Ford have is their total lack of taste when it comes to vehicle design. While there may be a few gems that come out of their Detroit offices, generally speaking, they produce cars that lack taste and passion. The cars are just unexciting and their trucks look like trucks.

So, I have always said that if I were a GM or Ford designer I would do what Hyundai has decided to do, copy the hell out of successful cars from respected manufacturers. Hyundai’s cars look like Honda Accords and Jaguars (which I think are butt ugly cars, but I digress). The decision to copy successful styling cues from other manufacturers seems to have reinvigorated Hyundai’s sales – and I thought it might help out American manufacturers.

I think I was wrong. Or maybe just misguided.

And that brings us back to the Cadillac Escalade. The Escalade, which I would say is one of the more decent cars that has come off of the GM assembly line, has gotten a familiar design element added to it’s front fenders. It seems that someone over at GM (who probably drives a German car) has copied the BMW M car’s front fender air intake thingy – lets call it a Gumberveigen (a totally made up word that sounds way German).

Why copy the Gumberveigen? I have no idea. Maybe it makes the gargantuan Escalade seem faster and sportier with a Gumberveigen. Maybe the Gumberveigen actually serves a purpose on the Escalade. Maybe the Gumberveigen serves an even more functional purpose – like a cheese grater or something.

I have no clue. But it just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do to an Escalade. But maybe I am wrong about all of this.

What do you think?

Posted by James at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)