In a recent post on Mediapost's Search Insider, writer David Berkowitz enlighten's those still curious about what Search is all about by his recent article entitled, "Search's MySpace Age Arrives"
by David Berkowitz, Tuesday, September 4, 2007
"With search becoming a more ubiquitous activity across the Web, comScore is expanding the market view of the search universe to encompass other searches that occur on the Internet." David writes that it is now unclear now more than ever as to who may be the fourth largest search engines
I've been waiting for this day since August 2006, when I published a column on "Search's MySpace Age." I wrote, "MySpace is much bigger than just a social network; it's also a search engine. ComScore has at times listed it as the sixth largest engine, albeit with less than one percent of searches." The column continued, "The growth of MySpace, which now has more than 100 million registered users, leads me to wonder what would happen if MySpace emerged as one of the top four search engines (my prediction: it will)."
The prediction took a year to come true. ComScore's latest data shows MySpace capturing 551 million searches in July 2007, compared to 438 million for AOL (the whole Time Warner Network, which includes Mapquest, had 971 million searches) and 219 million for Ask.com (the whole Ask Network, including MyWebSearch, had 449 million). By this tally, MySpace only trails Google, Yahoo, and MSN Windows Live when comparing it to the five major search engines.
The prediction wasn't perfect. YouTube had more searches than MySpace -- albeit commandingly, with just over 1 billion searches. By that standard, MySpace is really the fifth-largest engine, topping MapQuest and other AOL properties (which had 533 million searches), eBay (468 million), Craigslist (170 million), and Amazon sites (144 million). (In some ways I've waited two and a half years for this news; I considered branding eBay a search engine in a March 2005 column.)
Meanwhile, MySpace's share of searches has grown exponentially, as it captured 4.12% of all 13.4 billion Internet searches. To compare the figure to last year when comScore briefly included MySpace as the sixth largest search engine, MySpace would have captured over 7% of searches if it was included in the July 2007 "core search" category, ten times the 0.7% share it garnered in May 2006.
For publishers, there's far more at stake than bragging rights. Searching within a site is already tapped as a revenue opportunity, as signified by Google's deal powering MySpace's searches through 2010, which guarantees MySpace almost twice as much revenue as Fox Interactive Media paid for it. Given MySpace's search volume, it's a safe bet that Google will have to pay well over the minimum. On top of that direct revenue, though, couple the searches per visitor with other engagement metrics -- and publishers can make an even better case for advertisers to increase spending there.
For marketers, comScore's framework points to even more opportunity. Part of it lies in media planning, as some of these other publishers can be part of both search and display buys, and the search industry as a whole benefits from a more competitive market. There's even more potential upside for marketers when thinking about search engine optimization. This ties directly into the growing appreciation for universal search, from how Google includes other content in its main search engine results pages to a broader definition that ties into how comScore portrays this vast search universe.
Consider a search on YouTube for "Kabul football club" (without the quotes), which leads to a popular, well-rated short documentary on the Afghanistan soccer team. Enter that query in Google and the YouTube link comes up first, just as it does in Yahoo. Yet in Yahoo, the third link points to the same clip on Google Video, though Google Video doesn't appear within the first three pages of Google's own results for this search. Meanwhile, the YouTube clip ranks first in Google for "Kabul football team," but try that query on Yahoo and YouTube drops to sixth place.
Marketers can take advantage of this trend too. Last December, for example, Kodak released a commercial on YouTube where an elderly man rants about how slowly Kodak embraced digital photography while promoting how nimble it is today. Type "Kodak commercial" (without quotes) in Google and the YouTube rant ranks first, ahead of kodak.com, which ranks sixth. The same search on Yahoo brings up Kodak.com first and second followed by the YouTube video. Try "Kodak rant" on Yahoo and that YouTube video ranks first, but the video doesn't rank in the first three pages of Google for that query. The queries themselves may not be Kodak's top concerns for optimization, but they're examples of how marketers can use these other search engines to increase their touch-points with consumers regardless of how and where people are conducting the search.
This mindset offers marketers clues for how to consider optimizing for all search sites as a way to dominate natural search results in the core engines. The comScore list is just a starting point -- Digg, Flickr, Technorati, and others are all building momentum as search sites while gaining more visibility in the core engines. Of course, it's not all about social media optimization, as eBay, Amazon, and MapQuest are search engines too. It's MySpace, though, that first offered the glimpse into the future, back when it commanded less than 1% of all searches last year. Once you accept MySpace as a search engine, you're ready for much of the change ahead.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Ning and Home Depot
Things that Ning and Home Depot have in common:
1. They are both warehouses
2. They both don't really teach you how to build anything of substance
3. They both prove that you still need a pro to get things done
4. They both are "not cool" by any sense of the word...
Does $45Million in first round buy you a better mouse trap? Playboy recently announced their new social network has been built on Ning's platform. This network is supposed to be private for college students only. Not too sure when we'll be adding this network on SocialURL but its something to keep an eye on and see if it gains any traction (which i'm sure it will).
This brings up the thought of what are game plans are for aggregating social networks on Ning and other DIY platforms...
Another quick thought before i forget- with Amazon making available their dirt cheap Virtual Servers with auto duplicating load balancing...someone or anyone with any knowledge of open source and a passion towards a niche interest could launch a social network and gain 100% of revenue rather than share with Ning or its competitors...so then what will be the ultimate win for Ning and its competitors?
...If Ning or any of its competitors are able to create a stable social network with over 150 members who are always online daily we'll consider them on our network page.
1. They are both warehouses
2. They both don't really teach you how to build anything of substance
3. They both prove that you still need a pro to get things done
4. They both are "not cool" by any sense of the word...
Does $45Million in first round buy you a better mouse trap? Playboy recently announced their new social network has been built on Ning's platform. This network is supposed to be private for college students only. Not too sure when we'll be adding this network on SocialURL but its something to keep an eye on and see if it gains any traction (which i'm sure it will).
This brings up the thought of what are game plans are for aggregating social networks on Ning and other DIY platforms...
Another quick thought before i forget- with Amazon making available their dirt cheap Virtual Servers with auto duplicating load balancing...someone or anyone with any knowledge of open source and a passion towards a niche interest could launch a social network and gain 100% of revenue rather than share with Ning or its competitors...so then what will be the ultimate win for Ning and its competitors?
...If Ning or any of its competitors are able to create a stable social network with over 150 members who are always online daily we'll consider them on our network page.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Facebook goes in content targeting
Its about time a social network started to target the content users willingly submit on their social profiles- just a no-brainer if you'd ask me. If you really think about it over 90% of MySpace's revenue comes from search with their Billion dollar Google deal.
After spending 2 days pitching to VC's and hearing the news about Facebook's revelations on search - i realized what had to be done. We have to figure out our potential search gains. With over 10 Million visits to our site to date this could be the missing link for VC's to gain their undoubted "YES"! This was really spawned from my meeting with Mike Brown from Foundation Capital he asked different probing questions about my vision and the future of the web and that felt really nice for a change...I can't wait to sit with him more often to bounce more philosophical theories about where i think the web is going.
Earlier on Thursday we met with Azure Venture Capital it was an associate named Barry Chubrik the pre-screener and numbers cruncher to make sure that we are the kind of stuff Azure would even come close to wanting to hear a pitch from. The first thing he says when entering the room on the 11th floor conference room overlooking all of San Francisco bay was I only have 30 minutes. Albeit nice, he carried with him that arrogance of "I have my MBA from a tier 1 school so my time is much more important than yours" - I found him pretty intriguing nonetheless. He didn't know a thing about our niche, but mustered up a few common names in the industry like NING.
After that meeting I had to yet again make some updates to our next meeting with Mike Brown...which turns out he didn't really seem to care too much about the sale but more about the vision and the genuine interest to want to help. We had talked about a month prior on the phone. I owe my thanks to that intro from Nathan at Limelight.
A few applications and tools we plan on building include email aggregation similar to what a group of developers have done at Fuser out of Boulder and a browser application ...can you tell we're preparing for some new updates before "Back To School" !!!
After spending 2 days pitching to VC's and hearing the news about Facebook's revelations on search - i realized what had to be done. We have to figure out our potential search gains. With over 10 Million visits to our site to date this could be the missing link for VC's to gain their undoubted "YES"! This was really spawned from my meeting with Mike Brown from Foundation Capital he asked different probing questions about my vision and the future of the web and that felt really nice for a change...I can't wait to sit with him more often to bounce more philosophical theories about where i think the web is going.
Earlier on Thursday we met with Azure Venture Capital it was an associate named Barry Chubrik the pre-screener and numbers cruncher to make sure that we are the kind of stuff Azure would even come close to wanting to hear a pitch from. The first thing he says when entering the room on the 11th floor conference room overlooking all of San Francisco bay was I only have 30 minutes. Albeit nice, he carried with him that arrogance of "I have my MBA from a tier 1 school so my time is much more important than yours" - I found him pretty intriguing nonetheless. He didn't know a thing about our niche, but mustered up a few common names in the industry like NING.
After that meeting I had to yet again make some updates to our next meeting with Mike Brown...which turns out he didn't really seem to care too much about the sale but more about the vision and the genuine interest to want to help. We had talked about a month prior on the phone. I owe my thanks to that intro from Nathan at Limelight.
A few applications and tools we plan on building include email aggregation similar to what a group of developers have done at Fuser out of Boulder and a browser application ...can you tell we're preparing for some new updates before "Back To School" !!!
Friday, August 24, 2007
Bridging the gap between MySpace and Facebook
I'm starting a very interesting social experiment with 300 of my "connections" on SocialURL. Inspired by my most recently read book "The Tipping Point", I spent the last 2 days hunting down 300 profiles that had these criterias:
1. People who belonged to both MySpace and Facebook (Connectors)
2. People who had over 150 friends on SocialURL (Salesmen)
3. People who had lots of diverse interests (Mavens)
If you've read the book you know that each profile character above represent key people who create an epidemic. What I'm doing with 300 is trying to build personal relationships with them over the next 3 months. Selectively spreading my vision of SocialURL like a religion and out of the 300 the probability is that 40-144 will spread my words around to their existing 150+ contacts.
It is a proven fact that you can move an army with 150 soldiers if you are a great leader with interpersonal skills. Jesus started Christianity in this very same way- with small groups in a very short period of time. The HIV epidemic in the US was traced back to 1 flight attendant who had sex with over 1000 men in the span of 30 days. (last example was a bit random and morbid but you get what i'm hinting at)
It does help that i have experience as a Christian Evangelist during my college days and also have proven network marketing skills with (Quickstar the online extension of Amway). But worry not- I no longer sell soap or spread religion (at least not in that particular order:)
1. People who belonged to both MySpace and Facebook (Connectors)
2. People who had over 150 friends on SocialURL (Salesmen)
3. People who had lots of diverse interests (Mavens)
If you've read the book you know that each profile character above represent key people who create an epidemic. What I'm doing with 300 is trying to build personal relationships with them over the next 3 months. Selectively spreading my vision of SocialURL like a religion and out of the 300 the probability is that 40-144 will spread my words around to their existing 150+ contacts.
It is a proven fact that you can move an army with 150 soldiers if you are a great leader with interpersonal skills. Jesus started Christianity in this very same way- with small groups in a very short period of time. The HIV epidemic in the US was traced back to 1 flight attendant who had sex with over 1000 men in the span of 30 days. (last example was a bit random and morbid but you get what i'm hinting at)
It does help that i have experience as a Christian Evangelist during my college days and also have proven network marketing skills with (Quickstar the online extension of Amway). But worry not- I no longer sell soap or spread religion (at least not in that particular order:)
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
SocialURL and RembrandtVC.com
Our advisor (Anne Donker) set us up for a pitch meeting with RembrandtVC's general partner and principal Richard Ling today. We provided the venue for the meeting at an office space that belonged to Anne's friends. (won't mention names) Anyhow, I managed to come up with 3 additional slides to the powerpoint that i did not originally have and all within an hour prior to Richard's arrival!
Luckily he was about one hour behind schedule...:) Lessons learned:
1. Should have said "I don't know" at some point to make clear that funding would help us to get to that place of "Ahah...I know!"...this is often more about financials and profit models (those of you starting your own companies know what i'm talking about)
2. Sell what makes sense to your investors- not what you think makes sense to your ambitions...
3. Never pitch alone...always have an advisor or partner...
4. Get a haircut at Addy's he is an awesome hair stylist that will make you feel like $1MM bucks at $25 bucks! (promised i'd plug him)
5. Always Be Prepared...even when you don't feel like you are...act as if!
6. Be thankful for the opportunity even when its not in the form of a check!...working towards something you can't see, feel, smell or touch is one of the most profound experiences in the known universe...it is what separates Entrepreneurs, from the rest of society and the masses...not knowing when, why or how at times but moving along with determination, passion and conviction...
Luckily he was about one hour behind schedule...:) Lessons learned:
1. Should have said "I don't know" at some point to make clear that funding would help us to get to that place of "Ahah...I know!"...this is often more about financials and profit models (those of you starting your own companies know what i'm talking about)
2. Sell what makes sense to your investors- not what you think makes sense to your ambitions...
3. Never pitch alone...always have an advisor or partner...
4. Get a haircut at Addy's he is an awesome hair stylist that will make you feel like $1MM bucks at $25 bucks! (promised i'd plug him)
5. Always Be Prepared...even when you don't feel like you are...act as if!
6. Be thankful for the opportunity even when its not in the form of a check!...working towards something you can't see, feel, smell or touch is one of the most profound experiences in the known universe...it is what separates Entrepreneurs, from the rest of society and the masses...not knowing when, why or how at times but moving along with determination, passion and conviction...
Updates for August 2007
First we want to welcome 2 new team members, Krishna Kashyap (Operations Director) and Max Young (Creative Director) You can visit their SocialURL profiles to find out more.
Secondly, We're excited to have Anne Donker our Chief Advisor on board who has gotten us a meetings with Rembrandt VC and Azure VC. We know that there are no guarantees in life but there is much more to startUps than guarantees and that is something you learn from day one.
Thirdly, we have made some updates to the site that we feel are pretty exciting...
"Stalk the stalker" feature is a member's only feature that allows you to see how visitors got to your profile...pretty cool huh? Imagine the kind of data you can collect as a member!
"Network" page update...we've finally cleaned this page up and we're pretty happy with the UI- we've gotten rid of the partner link exchange because too many sites were not sending us traffic back! So now we are selling premium ad space and if you have a social website and want some presence its going to be $$$ per 145x145 and its a flat upfront package...ya dig?!
Secondly, We're excited to have Anne Donker our Chief Advisor on board who has gotten us a meetings with Rembrandt VC and Azure VC. We know that there are no guarantees in life but there is much more to startUps than guarantees and that is something you learn from day one.
Thirdly, we have made some updates to the site that we feel are pretty exciting...
"Stalk the stalker" feature is a member's only feature that allows you to see how visitors got to your profile...pretty cool huh? Imagine the kind of data you can collect as a member!
"Network" page update...we've finally cleaned this page up and we're pretty happy with the UI- we've gotten rid of the partner link exchange because too many sites were not sending us traffic back! So now we are selling premium ad space and if you have a social website and want some presence its going to be $$$ per 145x145 and its a flat upfront package...ya dig?!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Bolt.com is Out of dot biz!!!!
http://techfunked.com/web20blog/2007/08/16/boltcom-going-out-of-business-files-for-bankruptcy/#comment-3
This one has been a couple weeks coming… Bolt.com has officially announced it is ceasing operations. After copyright lawsuit debts amounting to $10 million, and the news on August 1st that GoFish.com was not longer in the hunt for Bolt, it’s over.
I’m just not understanding the economics behind this one. If anyone has any financial states, I would love to see them. I don’t put much faith in silly website rankings, but there’s no joking around with a Compete rank of 112. I’m assuming the copyright lawsuits also included cease and desist judgment for much of the content on the site. But still, with all the money being thrown around right now, it seems as if someone could’ve turned such a high trafficked site down a new path. Oh well, I guess that’s just more traffic that has now become available for the rest of us, right? :-\
This one has been a couple weeks coming… Bolt.com has officially announced it is ceasing operations. After copyright lawsuit debts amounting to $10 million, and the news on August 1st that GoFish.com was not longer in the hunt for Bolt, it’s over.
I’m just not understanding the economics behind this one. If anyone has any financial states, I would love to see them. I don’t put much faith in silly website rankings, but there’s no joking around with a Compete rank of 112. I’m assuming the copyright lawsuits also included cease and desist judgment for much of the content on the site. But still, with all the money being thrown around right now, it seems as if someone could’ve turned such a high trafficked site down a new path. Oh well, I guess that’s just more traffic that has now become available for the rest of us, right? :-\
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