Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal talking about the John McCain campaign's effective use of paid search ads to "ambush" Obama related searches. Definitely worth a read for you search marketing types.

One thing in the article that bugs me though is this:

Sen. Obama can also claim a huge lead in nonpaid search traffic, which suggests that he has done a good job optimizing its Web pages for search engines.

I think this is more of a "big brand" thing than an optimization thing. Kind of similar to the reason that GEICO gets as much search traffic on Google as the term "auto insurance."

Picky, picky. I know.

Posted by James at 04:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Democratic National Convention started in Denver today. Sound like things are getting quite wild in the city and Kristi and I are hoping to head downtown tomorrow night to see the show.

To get in the mood for the event, I've been reading Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72, and I've been startled by some of the similarities between then and now. A good example of this is the following excerpt from the book (pg 174):

"I've always thought that the blue-collar vote had to be a source of his strength," said Frank Mankiewicz, McGovern's main strategist. "It always seemed to me that McGovern-not as the anti-war candidate but as the change candidate-would appeal more to Middle America than he would to any other group. They're the ones with the most to gain from change and they're the ones who get screwed by the way we do business in this country."

Funny how so little has changed in the last 36 years.

Posted by James at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Todd Dever of Cool Fonts fame passed this video on to me, and I highly recommend watching no matter who you are or what you do. It makes a good case for the progression of media into an active, rather than passive, activity.

Posted by James at 08:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Great spot for the new XBox game, Viva Piñata.

[via The Egotist]

Posted by James at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been spending A LOT of time looking at site that could be a potential like targets for the company I'm working with, and I can honestly say I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of the web over the last couple months.

While I think it's safe to say there are a pile of contenders in the property search market, some of the sites that are popping up on the real estate fringe are quite interesting. Two examples I found today are StreetAdvisor and Walk Score.

StreetAdvisor is a site that uses user generated content to help you decided on a street to live on. As with any user generated content site, there are areas that have not yet been contributed to, but doing some searches around the Denver area I found some good reviews for my favorite streets. A very cool concept, and a company that could pretty logically be snatched up by a big property search player looking for interesting neighborhood data.

Walk Score is a site that looks at the schools, stores, shops, parks, etc. and rates address' "walkability score." It's a great tool for anyone looking to move to a city they don't know well, and that might not have or want to use a car in this age of rising gas prices. Not sure if this is a target for purchase, since they pretty much explain their algorithm on their site, and are using Google Maps as their data source. Still, I have a feeling selling out may not really be the endgame for Walk Score.

Know of any other fun sites like this in the property world? If so, leave me a note in the comments!

Posted by James at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here's the confirmation.

How long until you think someone is going to use the "fake bigfoot" theme in a commercial.

I give it 1 month.

Posted by James at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This was too good not to mention.

Posted by James at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hilarious video prepping the democrats coming to town for the Democratic National Convention this month.

Via The Denver Egotist.

Posted by James at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ran across this advert in the Frankfurt airport a couple days ago:

It's almost like the printer lost the actual ad copy and instead used part of the copy from the agencies justification presentation to their clients.

I'm not sure if this was a mistake, a high form of "lost in translation" or the future of marketing - full explanation of your targeting strategy in lieu actual feature and benefit statements.

We shall see.

Posted by James at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just wanted to give a quick update.

I am in Barcelona and having a good time (now). Got in on Thursday morning in one piece, but my luggage was nowhere to be found. Long story short, I finally got my luggage Friday night at 10PM at the airport. Was glad I had a flask full of Jameson stashed in it.

3 days in the same clothes was not ideal...especially when 1 day of that was on an airplane and the other 2 days were spent in an office without air conditioning in the middle of a very hot Spanish summer.

But now, I am good.

Slept in today until, well, late, and then went and had a nice lunch and sat on a bench by Sagrada Familia and read a book. Then I headed to Placa Catalyuna and did a bit of shopping...it's sale season here in BCN.

It's about 9 here in Barcelona now, so it's dinner time and then maybe off to meet some people for a drink.

Enjoy the weekend!

Posted by James at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)