Comments on: Nya-nya Goooogle

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 10:38:46 +0000

Google is just no more “no evil”. Once big money is involved it’s all about interests and making more money…

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:11:30 +0000

Uups. This bit, I mean: “If we in blogs get our acts together then we can form quality networks of trusted and targeted sites for the right advertisers”.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:09:19 +0000

- this is similar in principle to what the chaps at blogads are up to, isn’t it? Though they’re not pulling any big brands in. I think at the moment most brands are being advised to get involved in the blogosphere as bloggers, not advertisers; right now the argument that they should be ‘part of a conversation’ is more common and more compelling than the argument that blogs have a reach/precision comparable to tried and tested channels - the most popular bloggers, after all, are the most opinionated, and they’re the ones that brands will be least comfortable jumping into bed with. Or even advertising with. Jeff’s right, though, that bloggers could self-organise to create something big advertisers are prepared to trust.

By: Information Design Watch » What Does Google Run On?

Information Design Watch » What Does Google Run On? — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 14:44:59 +0000

[...] On the lastÂ point, ReynoldsÂ does link toÂ a BuzzmachineÂ post that suggests that Google’s marketing approach is not extensible. This doesn’t mean the current “views and click-through” model is not necessarily at risk, however. [...]

By: Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 01:18:29 +0000

Speaking of search engine problems, the Chinese above means “centrifugal fans” and is PageRank enhancing spam from a Chinese fan factory. Nice to see Buzzmachine going multilingual though.

By: Think38

Think38 — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 23:46:37 +0000

Google made many of its inroads by providing a search engine that delivered better results than most of its competitors. That engine is protected by one or more patents (at least in the US) that prohibits others from using it. But when the company starts activities that undermine the effectiveness of that engine, it erodes its own value. Why use google if you can’t trust its results? When it censors results in China, it makes me wonder whether it censors my search in the US. The result is that I now use other sites, and suspect that I will never go back.

By: Evil Pundit

Evil Pundit — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 22:47:20 +0000

I am aware of at least one case where Google ads were subject to political censorship — the company refused to advertise a book that was critical of Democrats while carrying ads for a similar book that attacked Republicans.

Such political partisanship would make me reluctant to do business with Google, or those who advertise with it.

By: garraeth

garraeth — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 16:46:38 +0000

And I don’t know about others, but when I switched from Google to Yahoo, my income went up nearly 10 fold…same site, same content, same daily hits.

Makes you go, hmm…

By: Cal

Cal — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 15:25:25 +0000

I keep pointing out that affiliate advertising (pay for performance) pays far, far better than adsense and gives bloggers a great way of raising money by advertising products their readers might actually use, thus increasing the likelihood of a purchase.

I see the value of branding at my own site. People are exposed as they read, which generates awareness about products and services. They make purchases they never planned on–wow, steaks on sale! And when they do make a planned sale, they are incorporating the information they’ve seen in ads over time.

So I’m selling both product and awareness to my readers, and the payout is much better (relative to my size). I think my sales should receive much higher commissions than search engines, because my buyers weren’t in the market and bought anyway. And I’m also providing brand awareness–whether it’s Dell coupons, or dollar shipping at Overstock, or ebag Special Sundays. So when people want to buy, they’ve been primed with information about my advertisers.

On the up side, I can pick quality merchants and there’s no negotiating or worry about my relatively small size. Everything’s free on my end, and I only get paid for sales.

If more bloggers and forums would look into affiliate advertising, I think we could start to negotiate higher commissions for our part in increasing brand awareness. But even without that, there’s really no reason for bloggers not to look into pay for performance advertising. My site members are on target to purchase over $200K this year. That is, if I put up some ads–which I’m supposed to be doing right now, so back to work.