Marketing Pilgrim

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about how to measure the value of blogging, including in B2B organizations. Forrester Research recently released a study entitled “How to Derive Value from B2B Blogging,” and it contained many valuable insights into the state of B2B blogging and its adoption today.

Some key findings from the report include:

• While adoption of corporate blogging has been growing over the past few years, the number of new blogs established in 2007 took a nose dive.
• Corporate bloggers can’t seem to keep the conversation going. The challenge for many B2B marketers seems to be that writing for a blog is often more conversational, while many B2B marketers have been trained to write with a strictly business or technical focus.
• Because B2B marketers aren’t trained to write for blogs, many blogs read like press releases. And let’s face it, that’s no way to start a conversation on your blog!

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The 3rd Annual SEM Scholarship Contest has now finished and we’re working on compiling the results to determine our five finalists.

Unlike previous years, we’ve decided to keep the five finalists–and traffic numbers– a secret during judging (we will reveal once the winner is announced), so that our panel of expert judges can deliberate without fear of influence.

Lastly, as the Fourth of July holiday is fast approaching, we’re delaying announcing the winner until July 11th.  I know this will likely cause hair-loss for some of you, but this delay will ensure our judges have plenty of time to make their decision.

So, to recap: our top five finalists will be sent to the judges this week. Each will vote on their favorite and the finalist with the most votes will be announced on July 11th–along with full traffic numbers for all entries.

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The last linky goodness of the month. But don’t worry—we’ll be back next month with more goodness for your linky enjoyment!

• Search Insider takes a look at yummy data. I heart data.
• Speaking of data, Matt Cutts posts on the Official Google Blog about Using data to fight webspam. Danny Sullivan points out in the comments on SERoundtable that the reason this article came out now was probably because Google’s facing criticism from the EU for storing data, and they want to justify data storage by showing that it improves their results.
• In case you missed it, the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog posts about the update to the SEO guidelines, which previously focused on SEO scammers—but now acknowledges that there are lots of legit SEOs out there that can get real results.
• Ars Technica taps into Jerry Yang’s desperation, saying that he needs Microsoft, so a deal might not be out of the question.

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Unless you consider “Watch Episodes of Your Favorite TV Shows Now. Fast & Easy!” to be ‘content,’ Google AdSense is making a bold move, according to today’s New York Times. In a deal with Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane, Google AdSense will be distributing McFarlane’s latest project, the Internet-only animated series, “Seth MacFarlane”s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy”:

Google will syndicate the program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane’s target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static ad on a Web page, Google will place a “Cavalcade” video clip.

The up-to-two–minute clips will also incorporate advertising, through preroll ads, a sponsor for the clip or an accompanying banner ad. McFarlane will receive a portion of the advertising proceeds.

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If you’ve forgotten, just nine months ago, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million. Doing the math from that, the total value of Facebook last October was $15B.

But apparently this possibly-soon-to-be-recession-(though-technically-still-not,-people!) has really hurt the “social utility.” Rumors are circulating on Silicon Alley Insider and TechCrunch that Facebook’s current value is less than $5B—and as low as $3 or $4 billion.

SAI cites rumors appearing in their comments for weeks that Facebook’s value is plummeting—and, more importantly, a source who was offered a 0.25% stake for $12.5M just two months ago. Once again turning to our trusty, rusty algebra, that gives a more recent total value of $5B.

Even more damning, Mike Arrington says that Bill Dagley, the managing director of a fund of high value investors (you know, VCs), is rumored to be shopping around some discount Facebook shares as well:

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If you haven’t tried iGoogle, Google’s personalized homepage, you’re not alone. But Google’s looking to spiff up their customizable homepages and testing has already begun, as Google Operating System reports—and it looks like they’re trying to make our foretelling of iGoogle as social network come true.

The old iGoogle featured tabbed navigation across the top of the page; the new iGoogle moves it to a left-hand sidebar. The new iGoogle will also feature a feed of friends’ actions—reminiscent of Facebook’s Mini-Feed—including “stories shared by your contacts in Google Reader, recent photos uploaded to Picasa Web Albums, Google Talk status messages, shared iGoogle themes and gadgets.”

Sounding a little social-y? Oh yeah. It gets better, according to GOS:

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Just six weeks after its coming out parade, natural language search engine Powerset is the subject of two rumors about its acquisition by Microsoft.

VentureBeat kicks things off, by telling us the deal has been done, and the purchase price $100 million.

Microsoft, the software giant flush with billions of dollars in its warchest, has agreed to buy Silicon Valley semantic search engine Powerset, we’ve learned.

The purchase price is rumored to be slightly more than $100 million. An announcement is expected next month.

As if annoyed that VentureBeat might have gotten the scoop, TechCrunch reports the deal is not actually final.

Our sources have been saying this deal is highly likely since May, but hasn’t actually been signed yet and could still be disrupted by the ongoing Microsoft-Yahoo negotiations.

Keep in mind that neither VB or TC have any official confirmation or announcement.

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Vivisimo, an enterprise search company based in Pennsylvania, announced Thursday that it has expanded its search affiliate program, which offers a free search engine for all government Web sites.

This search platform indexes more than 50 million government documents.

The platform covers news, images, frequently asked questions, maps, and weather forecasts. Searchers can also find government contact information, applications, and notices regarding jobs and benefits. Managers of web sites related to the government can add new features to their sites and even ambiguous search terms will extract useful information, Vivisimo said.

“Using Vivisimo’s superior search technology, and the expanded search affiliate program, anybody can easily access the vast amounts of information collected and generated by the U.S. government,” Raul Valdes-Perez, CEO and co-founder of Vivisimo, said in an announcement. “Vivisimo’s intuitive user-interface turns complexity into simplicity — and will help millions of people to get quick, authoritative answers to their questions.”

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Social networking site ConnectU sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their idea. They allege he used the source code they hired him to create for their site.

Now four years later Facebook is celebrating their four year anniversary, and that the lawsuit against them is finally settled – in Facebook’s favor. Facebook asked that the case be dismissed, for lack of evidence, and that happened. ConnectU then filed another lawsuit against Facebook in March, which is now closed.

Yesterday Judge James Ware of Federal District Court in San Jose, Calif., stood behind a February settlement between the companies. Also named were Zuckerberg’s Harvard classmates, twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra.

Facebook now has upwards of 39 million members and expanded to go beyond college students. ConnectU is said to have 15,000 members at 200 schools.

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We were pretty sure about this last week, but today Yahoo has formally announced their reorganization. Excuse me, their “Realignment to Support Core Strategies.” Of course. (via)

According to Kara Swisher, SVP Brad Garlinghouse will be replaced by Scott Dietzen, former CTO of Zimbra, which was acquired by Yahoo in September.

Just a year ago, Yahoo had a major management shakeup as Terry Semel stepped down and Jerry Yang and Susan Decker stepped in. Now, June rolls round again and it’s time for more changes. Among the changes announced:

Three new “teams” reporting to Sue Decker (President of Yahoo):

• Audience Products Division, led by Ash Patel of Platforms & Infrastructure—companywide product strategy and product management.
• A U.S. region, led by Hilary Schneider, former head of the Global Partner Solutions group—accountability for all go-to-market activity in the U.S.

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They may not allow domain tasting, however Internet regulator ICANN has voted unanimously to expand the number of top level domain names, as the BBC reports.

The decision provides companies the opportunity to turn their brands into web addresses, while individuals could potentially use their names. A second proposal, that would introduce domain names written in scripts such as Asian and Arabic, was also approved.

“We are opening up a new world and I think this cannot be underestimated,”

said Roberto Gaetano, a member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Another Domain Gold Rush!

ICANN has been working on the move for nearly six years.

Some companies have used the current system to suit their own needs with country domains, such as .tv , which was originally created to designate the Polynesian island of Tuvalu, but ended up being adopted by many companies in the television industry. Others have been even more creative – Can you say “del.icio.us?”

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It’s all quiet on the Pilgrim front. Until more news comes along, please ration these Picks:

• The Kelsey Group predicts online local video ad revenue will grow by 168% through 2012, reaching $1.5 billion. Does this mean local car dealerships will annoy us on the web too?
• Louis Gray reminds us not to believe everything we read on the web–especially Twitter rumors about Subway’s Jared kicking the bucket.
• Shari Thurow has never been afraid to stir up a hornets’ nest with her writing. Today, she takes a look at what makes you an "SEO Expert."
• Just because the economy is slowing, that doesn’t mean consumers are not still shopping online. They’re just focusing more on "used" search terms versus "new."
• Another great review for Trackur–w00t!