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Most Visited Real Estate Web Sites

posted on July 1, 2008

Real estate has been a more frequent topic recently on Marketing Pilgrim and I promised to write about recent stats on what real estate related terms people are typing in search engines. According to HitWise, the most popular web search volume for real estate sites goes to realtor.com. That’s based on data collected for the four weeks ending Jan. 26, 2008.

Hitwise is a subsidiary of Experian, and the stats are collected and analyzed directly from Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The information is based on search behavior of more than 10 million Internet users in the US.

Notice the mix of brand names vs. general terms. Six out of ten of the terms are variations on a brand name: Realtor.com, Remax, Century 21, Zillow (both plain and with the .com) and Coldwell Banker.

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Forget Google, Now MyBlogLog Adds Friends without Your Consent

posted on July 1, 2008

Yeah, okay, I’m still mad at Google for adding every single person I’ve ever emailed to my “friends” list. But lately worse things have been happening to me over at MyBlogLog (remember them?).

I know, I know, MBL has long since fallen out of favor with tech & SEM bloggers. I’d forgotten about them, too, other than the occasional “So and so has added you as a contact” e-mails.

Until the end of May, when I got one of these e-mails that stood out. It stood out because there were two emails in the conversation—the first, the usual “Check it! [user name] has made you a contact on MyBlogLog.” The second e-mail, sent one minute later, read “Check it! [user name] has returned the favor and added you to their contact list on MyBlogLog. Click below to visit their profile.”

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Google Can Opt-Out of AOL

posted on July 1, 2008

Let’s climb aboard the way-back-machine and take a trip to 2005. Carrie Underwood was rocking American Idol, Batman Begins made us believe in prequels again, and Google was buying a 1 billion dollar 5% stake in AOL.

According to a Washington Post article on December 17, 2005, Google purchased the 5% stake in AOL “as part of a far-reaching business and advertising partnership aimed at boosting AOL’s financial prospects as the Internet service struggles with the loss of millions of subscribers.”

The AOL partnership was an important win for Google at the time. Rival MSN was deep in the bidding process to replace Google as the search engine for AOL users when Google waltzed in with the $1 billion trump card.

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Breaking: Microsoft Acquires Powerset

posted on July 1, 2008

Breaking news from Microsoft…

We’re excited to announce that we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Powerset, a San Francisco-based search and natural language company.

Powerset will join our core Search Relevance team, remaining intact in San Francisco. Powerset brings with it natural language technology that nicely complements other natural language processing technologies we have in Microsoft Research.

More importantly, Powerset brings to Live Search a set of talented engineers and computational linguists in downtown San Francisco. This is a great team with a wide range of experience from other search engines and research organizations like PARC (formerly Xerox PARC).

Powerset explains on its blog, why they decided to sell to Microsoft…

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Pilgrim’s Picks for July 1st

posted on July 1, 2008

Good morning Pilgrims!

I trust your day is going well. If not, maybe one of these hot news Picks will help–failing that, grab a donut!

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89% of Your Customers Will Remain Loyal, If They Know You’re Listening to Them!

posted on July 1, 2008

While most of Radically Transparent is about managing and monitoring your online reputation, we spend a lot of time explaining that customers are discussing your brand and would love to have you join the conversation. New research from ExpoTV.com shows just how badly your customers want to hear from you.

Jeremiah Owyang has summarized the key points (emphasis is mine):

  • 55% of customers in their survey want to have an ongoing discussion brands
  • Respondents were most anxious to talk to the product design (49%) department, followed by customer support (14%), marketing (14%) and pricing (13%)
  • 89% said they felt more loyal if they knew the brand was listening through a feedback group
  • WOM: Sixty-one percent of survey respondents said that they told at least 10 people about the last brand they liked.

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Forecast Calls for More Online Advertising Spend; Who’s Keeping Score?

posted on July 1, 2008

As an internet marketer, any report of an increase in online ad spending brings a smile to my face. And a new forecast by ZenithOptimedia is the latest reason for happiness.

Zenith’s original forecast, made in March, said the Internet would account for 9.7 percent of global ad spending this year, for a total of $47.5 billion, and 12.3 percent in 2010, or $66.9 billion.

In the new forecast, Zenith predicts that online spending will exceed 10 percent of all advertising in 2008, for a total of $52.2 billion, and in 2010 account for 13.6 percent, or $78.2 billion.

Makes you want to grab the champagne, right?

But, with all these forecasts, studies, estimates, and whatnot, where’s the accountability? Who’s logging these numbers and then looking back at their accuracy?