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October 8, 2009

Eye Tracking Without The Eyes - AttentionWizard.com Beta

Eye tracking studies can be a very valuable tool that can help identify significant problems with your website or landing page. Unfortunately eye tracking requires expensive and specialized hardware and software to be used, and live test subjects to observe and measure.

In-page Web analytics can also provide detailed heatmaps of people's clicking and scrolling behavior. But these also require the landing page to be properly tagged and measure the behavior of real site visitors. This data takes time to collect and can only be gathered from "live" pages.

Recent advances in the study of computational attention and human visual processing now offer a new and exciting alternative. Computer algorithms can be used to simulate where people will look during the first few seconds of interacting with your site and create a detailed attention heatmap of your landing page.

This approach has several advantages:

Instant results - upload an image of the landing page and get your answer
High degree of accuracy - 75%+ correlation with eye tracking and mouse tracking
Works with page mock-ups - can be used with in-progress mock-ups before the page goes live

SiteTuners.com has recently announced the launch of a FREE private beta program (limited to the first 5000 sign-ups) for it new AttentionWizard.com visual attention simulation tool. Free daily heatmaps will be available for all participants for the length of the beta program. A paid version with per-image based pricing is expected by Q1 2010 for individuals, companies, and interactive agencies.

Posted by Tim Ash at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

September 29, 2009

Microsoft Windows 7 House Party: Public Relations Disaster or Video Marketing Triumph?

If you create something so bad that it goes viral, is it a public relations disaster or a video marketing triumph?

That's the question that journalists and bloggers are asking after watching HostingYourParty, which tells you how to host a Microsoft Windows 7 House Party.

Microsoft is putting a Tupperware-style twist on the upcoming Windows 7 rollout -- launching a new initiative to encourage thousands of employees, partners and technology enthusiasts to throw parties in their homes and communities to demonstrate and help spread the word about its new operating system.

People accepted as official launch party hosts will get their own copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, and a chance to win a computer. But unlike the Tupperware model, there will be no literal selling. These parties are more about generating word-of-mouth buzz.

To promote this idea, Microsoft has uploaded a video to YouTube. Some journalists and bloggers think it is a public relations disaster.

Cindy Perman of CNBC writes, "You just knew that once they put the Microsoft geeks in charge of the "party," that it wouldn't be a 10-kegger and before long, we'd all be putting lampshades over our heads."

Ian Douglas, a tech blogger for the Daily Telegraph in London, writes, "I'm beginning to think that no one involved with Microsoft's advertising has ever left the house or spoken to a real person."

And James Lileks of The Bleat writes, "If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have ended long ago, because no one would be caught dead doing something that uncool."

Now, you may be tempted to watch this 6-minute, 14-second video yourself -- to jump to your own conclusion. But, I warn you -- only serious geeks like me will watch beyond the first minute.

HostingYourParty

Now, if Microsoft really wanted to show people how to hold a Windows 7 Launch Party, they might have created a remix of the 1950s educational video below about what, in fact, makes a "good" party.

1950 - What Makes a Good Party

Not all of the reaction to Microsoft's Windows 7 House Party has been negative. Some of it can be charitably described as "mixed."

David Meerman Scott of Web Ink Now, asks, "Is this Microsoft Windows 7 House Party thing real? Or is it an incredibly wonderful and clever spoof on a 50s educational video that is so well done as to have fooled most observers who seem to think it is legit?"

Janice L. Brown of The Fussy Marketer also asks, "Hmm, if something goes viral because it's so bad, does that still count as achieving the marketing goals?"

Nevertheless, Lieutenant Columbo, if he were blogging these days, would ask just one more thing: "Why did Microsoft disable ratings and adding comments on HostingYourParty?"

Is this something you'd do if you were hoping for a video marketing triumph?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

August 20, 2009

Assert Ownership Over Your Online Identity with PeoplePond Profile

One of the new exhibitors at SES San Jose 2009 was PeoplePond. The company offers a unique Internet service that provides personal brand visibility, reputation management and identity verification services.

Today, PeoplePond announced that profile authors can now prove and demonstrate ownership over many of their social media accounts when they subscribe to PeoplePond's Identity Verification package. This includes social media accounts on Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Picasa, Twitter and YouTube.

PeoplePond's Services Verification is the first of other new capabilities PeoplePond plans to launch during the upcoming weeks to make it easier for people to create a verified and trusted position from which to promote their personal brands and online assets. Each PeoplePond profile is designed to provide the owner full control to implement a search engine optimization strategy that boosts visibility for their entire online identity.

Additionally, the PeoplePond Identity Verification service confirms to profile visitors that the profile owner has proven they are who they say they are. This takes the teeth out of online identity thieves by providing a bona fide point of reference for online identity.

PeoplePond is part of the Cranberry Venture Partners, LLC network of Web sites. Cranberry is home to a team of developers led by David McInnis, who is best known for founding PRWeb.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

January 8, 2009

Yahoo Gets Into the TV Business (Kinda), While TiVo Gets Into Search (Sorta)

The news coming out of this year's CES is turning out to be a showcase for the way things are changing for the internet, which in turns affect how people use search (for both searching and marketing).

First, Microsoft had its major Live Search announcements. Then, we saw a device with Android to compete with the iPod Touch.

But another major topic is the merging of TV with the Internet. This isn't anything new, it's just getting cooler. You or your grandma may have used Web TV before. Remember those good ol' days? But it's online video sites like YouTube and now Hulu which are really driving the convergence.

Electronics companies such as LG and Samsung are debuting new televisions that are Internet connected. Yahoo is taking advantage of the opportunity.

Yahoo has developed a Widget Channel for these new devices. The channel is powered by their Widget Engine. Developers can create widgets to enhance a viewer's TV watching experience.

Here's what a Yahoo! weather widget looks like:

eBay, CBS and MySpace have widgets on the channel, with more expected soon from Netflix, Twitter, the New York Times and more.

“Yahoo! has combined key attributes of the Internet, including openness, community, and personalization, with the power of television,” said Patrick Barry, vice president, Connected TV, Yahoo!. “By creating this revolutionary new Internet experience, and combining our technology with the global distribution of major consumer electronics partners, we enable consumers to access the relevant information and content to enhance their television watching experience.”

Last but not least, TiVo has updated the search on their digital video recording service.

"What Google did for the Internet, TiVo is now doing for the TV, bringing people a combination of excellent search results and innovative discovery that can't be found anywhere else," said Tom Rogers, CEO and President of TiVo. "TiVo has always been known as the best way to watch what you want, when you want it. Now we're taking that to a new level, using TiVo technology to find just the right program from hundreds of channels and thousands of broadband options, all in seconds. It is clear TiVo is leading the way in providing more choice, and also leading the way in finding content quickly. TiVo Search is a new way to find what you've been missing."

With the marriage of TV and the internet, TiVo could rise as a player in search.

What do you, dear reader, think about these new developments? Share your thoughts on the convergence of TV and the internet in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 26, 2008

Twellow: Twitter Member Search

The people who give us WebProNews have launched a search engine for Twitter members - Twellow. Smart move given the popularity of Twitter and one Twitter itself could have launched if it was not already trying to lift a whale with a bunch of small birds.

The site has categories and will be interesting to see the breakdown of users by these categories. Something tells me the search space will be one of the leading categories.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 17, 2008

Download Firefox 3 Today: Firefox Download Day to Set a Guiness World Record

Firefox 3 will be released today which makes today Firefox Download Day 2008.

To build its user base, Mountain View-based Mozilla will attempt a Guinness World's Record for the most software downloads in 24 hours.

You can download Firefox 3 here.

Firefox 3 promises exciting new features, including one-click bookmarking, the smart location bar and lightning fast performance. Other features include built-in spell checking, session restore and full zoom.

Firefox 3 will also offer more than 5,000 add-ons, including Shareaholic which allows you to share, bookmark, and e-mail web pages quickly via a wide array of web 2.0 social Web sites. Shareaholic currently supports: digg, del.icio.us, facebook, foxiewire, friendfeed, google bookmarks, google reader, healthranker, kaboodle, magnolia, mixx, myspace, pownce, reddit, simpy, stumbleupon, streakr, truemors, tumblr, twitter, ycombinator, bzzster and others.

Firefox 3 release time is 10 a.m. PDT today. You can pledge to join the World's Record attempt on the site and receive a reminder when Firefox 3 is officially released.

Or you can follow "mozillafirefox" on Twitter for status updates.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

June 9, 2008

User 927: U Are What U Seek: Search Engine Drama

"User 927" - subtitled "U are what U Seek" - is the first drama inspired by search engine keywords such as Mange, human mold, and white camellia. Not to mention the bizarre combination of "dying Elmo." First noted in the blog Consumerist back in April, User 917 is a thriller about cyberstalking, search engines, and the way information is obtained, manipulated, and released in our wired world

The Associated Press published an interesting article today about a theatre production based on AOL keywords that were released inadvertently by AOL and posted on the Internet. In the play, the keywords are clues to finding a missing person.

"User 927" is a new production in Philadelphia that combines fact with fiction to tell the story of a disappearance from a small Midwestern town. It's the story of a mother and her teenage daughter who move from Brooklyn, N.Y., to fictional Osterville, Ind., in search of a simpler life. The story's central clue is the real-life online search log of an AOL subscriber — identified only as User 927 — that was released to the public two years ago in a well-publicized privacy faux pas.

Brat Production also produced "A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pagaent" - unrelated to the ongoing Google-YouTube controversy pitting Anonymous versus Scientologists.

AOL released some 19 million search requests made during a a three month period by more than 650,000 subscribers. The logs were intended to help academic researchers, but they were posted on a public site.

User 927 has never been identified publicly. Not surprisingly, no one has claimed credit for being User 927.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 14, 2008

Search Engine Watch Forums Names Chris Boggs Associate Editor

Chris Boggs, manager, Search Engine Optimization for Brulant has joined Search Engine Watch Forums as Associate Editor. Chris is a highly sought after speaker on the circuit. He's presented at Search Engine Strategies (SES), PubCon and SMX among others.

Chris will be teaming up with Search Engine Watch Forums Editor, Frank Watson, founder of Kangamurra Media.

Chris and Frank write the weekly SEM Crossfire column for SEW Experts: debating, arguing, and discussing the hottest search engine marketing and SEO issues in the industry.

So what can you expect from Chris in the Forums? The best example may be found here.

I also asked Chris to warn me about what kind of trouble he plans getting me into:

"I am very excited to become more involved with SEW Forums. I can really say that I learned a lot from the forums when it they first started, and I have continued to benefit from community participation. I have unfortunately had less time to participate at SEW forums as I used to, but I plan on ramping back up during the off-hours. One thing I am tied of seeing at SEW and other forums is so-called experts coming in and making absurd or non-factual statements."

Hey, me too, Chris. But what do you plan to do about it?

"Those types of participants can take my new position announcement as notice that I'm tired of being nice. I and other Moderators plan on urging people to back up their statements with proof, or suffer public ridicule. Those people that are newer to the industry and openly want to learn (and do not claim falsely to be experts) will hopefully be less likely to be derailed by advice based on zero sum experience."

Wow. You heard it here first.

Hello Chris, goodbye B.S.

photo credit: SearchEvangelist on Flickr

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

April 29, 2008

Sunrgi: Stealth Tech Startup May Transform Search Engine Industry

Nick Carr (The Big Switch) created the framework to view the transformation of the search engine industry (the world's information indexed) into a knowledge grid that companies and people can plug into, the same way a century ago companies stopped generating power from steam engines and dynamos and plugged into the newly built electric grid.

Sunrgi, a new solar energy system startup just out of stealth mode today promises to produce cheap electricity at wholesale prices: 5-cents per kWh (kilowatt hour). Google

XCPV (Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics) concentrates the equivalent of more than 1,600 times the sun's energy onto hyper-efficient solar cells, was announced today by Sunrgi, a solar energy system designer and developer, at the National Energy Marketers Association's Annual Global Energy Forum in Washington, DC.

The technology may enable utility companies, corporations, and residents to produce electricity from solar energy at a lower cost than has ever been possible.

Google (GOOG) spent $842 million on infrastructure in Q1 2008, its largest capital expenditures (CAPEX) ever for a single quarter, according to Data Center Knowledge. The record capex investment will acceleration increase Google's need to generate vast amounts of cheap power efficiently.

Google announced four major data center projects in the U.S. in 2007, including facilities in North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Iowa. Google says its capital expenditures are "related to IT infrastructure investments, including data centers, servers, and networking equipment."

The green technology isn't vaporware but it may be a couple years before widespread adoption.

"In a little more than a year we were able to develop and successfully test XCPV," said Bob Block, co-founder and Sunrgi principal in a statement. "We expect the Sunrgi system to become available for both on and off-grid power appplications, worldwide, in twelve to fifteen months"

The price is right: 5-cents is on par with the wholesale cost of producing electricity using fossil fuels. That would make solar power as affordable as coal, natural gas or other non-renewable sources, without requiring a subsidy. Plus, it's a fraction of the cost of producing solar energy now.

At a nickel per kWh, NEMA (National Energy Marketers Association) calls solar power, "a world-changing breakthrough."

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:27 PM | Permalink

April 18, 2008

Guess Who's Skin Deep in The New York Times?

You're never going to guess which SEO rockstar was in The New York Times yesterday... Oh. You guessed. Right. Well then. Carry on.

Rand Fishkin , CEO of SEOMoz, appears on Oprah more than any other SEO. So we weren't surprised to see Rand Fiskin and SEOMoz debut yesterday in The New York Times Fashion & Style section.

Come to think of it, we were surprised. We didn't see the Times story mentioned in the growing search blogosphere. SEOMoz blogger Rebecca Kelley didn't mention the citation in her weekly news roundup but fortunately, Rand "tweeted" the link to the NY Times article on Twitter today.

"Skin Deep: To Cut or What? The World Butts In" a feature by NYT reporter Anna Jane Grossman suggests, "Gone are the days of making beauty look effortless. Instead everyone wants confirmation in the form of numbers, like so many singers vying for the love of the world's Simons, Paulas and Randys. And it seems public approval trumps personal choice, or the advice of friends."

The SEOMoz blog, (where SEW Expert Eric Enge and CEO, Stone Temple Consulting), has been guest blogging, received a coveted link from NY Times Digital.

So here's the scoop on the author of The Desire for Fame in the SEO World:

For Rand Fishkin, 28, opening up questions about his appearance seemed like a natural — and entertaining — extension of crowd sourcing, by which companies or Web sites let users create and manage content. In September 2007, Mr. Fishkin, the chief executive of SEOmoz, a company that does search engine optimization, posted six photos of himself on his blog, seomoz.org/blog and let readers vote for their favorite.

More than 400 nameless readers weighed in on the matter of goatee versus a full beard versus a clean shave. The next month, when Mr. Fishkin arrived in Stockholm for a conference unshaven and bristly, strangers approached him to tell him he had made the right choice.

'For a reader, it's compelling to be able to have a more personal connection with a person than just a blog-content connection,' Mr. Fishkin said."

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:47 PM | Permalink

April 1, 2008

New gDay algorithm threatens future of search marketing

There's very few questions Google has not been able to answer and, equally, there have been very few loopholes that SEOs have not been able to exploit. However, hot on the heels of techcrunch, I have discovered that the latest update from developers in Australia threatens to change all that.

Google's new MATE technology is designed to view relevancy as an entirely self consistent timeline, rendering link building a thing of the past. It simply wont be possible to exploit the rate of change of inbound links pointing to a site as it's relevancy will have already been historically determined.

So what is an SEO to do? The only possible way around this will be to implant 'site suggestions' within cache of sites linking to you. Archive.org would do well to be on hacker watch.

Posted by Jonathan Allen at 10:26 AM | Permalink

March 29, 2008

Global SEO Makes Bloomberg News Headline

Sure there are lots of global news stories in Bloomberg News today. For example, "Verizon Faces Fight With FCC's Martin Over Rules for Open Wireless Network." Bloomberg.com says Verizon Wireless faces a new challenge after beating Google Inc. in the biggest U.S. mobile- phone airwaves auction: scrutiny from regulators who expect the carrier to build a truly open network.

While we get just as excited about "scrutiny from regulators" as the next guy, that's not the best story of the day.

Nor was it "Houston Topless Clubs May Turn to Pasties After Losing 10-Year Legal Fight" detailing Eric Langan's plans to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court with pasties.

And while we're impressed by Ivy League students with hearts of gold turning Spring Break into a "Guilt Trip" for all the other Spring Breakers in Cabo ("Students on Spring Break Skip Mai Tais on Cabo to Serve at Bowery Mission") we're wondering why Ivy League students need to fly to Cabo to volunteer in a soup kitchen.

The story says "It's lunchtime at the Bowery Mission, and seven Cornell University students are serving rice, chicken and gravy to homeless men staying there to learn job skills and conquer addictions."

They must be serving the homeless with a "Silver Spoon."

Here's the one story we loved:

Global SEO expert Nick Wilsdon and his wife, Anna, starred in the headline news story, Russia's `City of Brides' Triggers Baby Boom After Love Quests by Bloomberg reporter, Yuriy Humber.

It's a great story. Don't miss it. The Bloomberg News photo shows:

English-Russian couple Anna and Nick Wilsdon in their home in Ivanovo, Russia, on Feb. 7, 2008. This year in the town of Ivanovo, babies are being born faster then ever, and deaths are slowing down. With any luck, the town known as Russia's "City of Brides'' will start to increase in population for the first time since the Soviet era."

Courtesy of the exceptional photographer, Dmitry Beliakov of Bloomberg News.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 3:15 PM | Permalink

March 28, 2008

Wordtracker Enhance Their Free Trial Offer

For the first time Wordtracker are offering a 1-week trial of their entire service and have released an accompanying 7 day video tutorial on how to get the best out of your Wordtracker account.

Entitled 'Profit from Keywords', the videos are designed to help new webmasters get the most out of keyword research. The short 5 minute videos are accessible to complete novices to search engine optimisation but detailed enough to provide a useful resource for in-house experts & agencies to educate their brand owners & clients.

At the recent SES in London, Wordtracker CMO Ken McGaffin raved about the results of "keyword creativity" seminars he has been leading with household brands that were revealing unique market insights into both offline and online customer acquisition and retention strategies. By including other non-SEO staff and stakeholders in the keyword research process, he found that no two seminars produced the same results and these companies were broadening their online vision overnight.

"Wordtracker has always considered educating our clients a prime remit which is why we launched the Wordtracker Academy last year," said McGaffin. "Clients or potential clients need to know the various ways that keyword research can enhance their business online. At the start this can be especially daunting for SMEs, so the videos provide an easy step by step process so that businesses can get up to speed quickly."

Every SEM expert understands the value of educating the market, but it's no secret that as an industry we've never done it very well. Ken hopes that these videos will help small and medium sized businesses nip the cost of mistakes early in the SEM campaign implementation stages. After all, who wants to rank for terms that no one searches for?

Posted by Jonathan Allen at 7:33 AM | Permalink

March 1, 2008

Brokeback Mountain View: Microsoft - Yahoo

Henry Blodget, editor of the fast-growing blog, Silicon Alley Insider (SAI), has an exclusive interview today with an unnamed "influential Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) shareholder." He offers exclusive "access to the (shareholder's) thinking on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal."

That would be me, says the former Wall St. analyst. Henry Blog-It!

Apparently not enough people have asked Henry Blodget for Henry Blodget's opinion of the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. So he this morning he did it himself.

Slate tried their best. Daniel Gross quoted Internet analyst and Slate contributor Henry Blodget in Slate (MONEYBOX: The Unspeakable R Word): "Search may be the best advertising medium in the history of the world," says Internet analyst and Slate contributor Henry Blodget. "But that doesn't help much when searchers are broke."

That's his Brokeback Mountain View: no country for old analysts.

All is forgiven: Blodget grew up in the "Me Decade" coined by Tom Wolfe. Henry made coin on Wall St. just after the "Bonfire of the Vanities." Now as an aspiring A-List blogger he writes "Advertisements For Myself," a 1960s strategy pioneered by Norman Mailer.

Blodget has become the defacto DIY go-to guy: DIY plumbers (leaks), DIY pink slippers (layoffs), DIY Page Six-ers (celebs, rumors) and DIY fruit stand (sour grapes). SAI loves engaging in what Mike Arrington of TechCrunch lovingly calls "rumormongering" to describe his own pioneering style of the New New Web 2.0 Journalism.

Henry has sense of humor calling his ploy a self-styled example of "Net-era absurdity." We prefer to term it Kafkaesque.

Henry - no private wealth financial advisor - has hung on to his Yahoo and Microsoft shares for "the better part of a decade." (So that's what's behind his bearish views on the Google Disaster.)

The better part of a decade!

I'd summarize and disagree with Henry but I don't want to interrupt his conversation with himself. But you've really gotta read it to believe it.

You'll find out the most important reason Henry warns "Jerry to get his butt up to Redmond."

Why? Well for one reason, Henry thinks "Steve Ballmer has a decent chance of getting Jerry and the board fired."

There you have it. What self-respecting billionaire wants to file for unemployment insurance these days?

Jerry Yang, are you listening?

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:27 PM | Permalink

January 27, 2008

SES Paris is Burning in flickr

While some may think of SES Paris as hors d'oeuvres before the lavish SES London banquet, there was no shortage of fun in the City of Lights. SES Global VP Kevin Ryan (pictured here) plans to launch new coverage of worldwide SES events on media sharing sites.

You can get a taste of Paris in the photo collection posted by burningmax.

If that doesn't whet your appetite, then stay tuned to your video player for exclusive coverage of SES Chicago.

Remember, if you didn't attend SES Paris this year, we'll always have SES Chicago.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 6:12 PM | Permalink

October 15, 2007

Debby From The Block: U Penn Long Tail Blockbuster

No way I could pass on pointing to the Debby Richman blockbuster post.

Wharton says: Online recommendation engines may chop off Long Tail of Search.

Prick up your ears, Chris Anderson Your Long Tail doberman (below) is under attack:

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