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Twitter Yields Clicks for Entertainment, Big Bucks for Music

posted on June 24, 2009

Two recent reports illustrate the power of Twitter in two important metrics—driving visits and purchasing power. Hitwise analyzes overall downstream traffic for Twitter, while NPD Group takes a look at downstream purchases generated by Twitter.

Hitwise took a look at the most popular categories of downstream traffic for Twitter, comparing them with Facebook, Google UK and Hotmail. Nearly a quarter of Twitter’s downstream traffic goes to entertainment sites, and another ~15% went to social networks:
Downstream_traffic_from_twitter_google_uk_facebook_hotmail_2009
Source: Hitwise

Interestingly, Twitter also leads in downstream traffic to news & media sites, lifestyle sites and music sites—and, taken with a new study from NPD Group, that’s good news for the music industry. As Reuters reports:

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Cuil Goes from “Google Killer” to “Google Beggar”

posted on June 24, 2009

notsocuilProving that hype will only get you so far–without substance–Cuil is going from “Google killer” to “Google beggar.”
According to IBD, the start-up is turning to the search engine that it vowed to topple–asking Google to provide ads on Cuil’s pages.

“That is what we are going to do,” said Tom Costello, Cuil’s chief executive. “We are negotiating with the obvious people, Google and Yahoo, and we are going to decide which is going to be the better fit.”

I understand the need to make money. After all, at some point Cuil will burn through the $33 million funding it raised, but publicly admitting you’re going cap in hand to Google? Weren’t you supposed to have decapitated them and left them for dead by now?

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Google Feels the Need, the Need for Speed!

posted on June 24, 2009

Google would like you to know that you are slowing down its plans to organize the world’s information. In fact, your lame web site is slowing down the internet in general.

OK, so maybe not your web site, but enough web sites are still relying on old technology and practices, that Google wants to put an end to it. Accordingly, Google has launched a new resource with best practices for speeding up your web site.

Some of the recommendations might need your web developer, but most of the advice should be easy enough to implement. If you’re not convinced, Google has developed a brainwashing educational video to help explain the benefits of us all speeding up our sites.

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Three Blind Mice Run from Yahoo to Microsoft

posted on June 24, 2009

I’m not about to turn Marketing Pilgrim into a collection of children’s nursery rhymes, but news that three Yahoo employees have defected to Microsoft did bring this to mind:

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
See how they run. See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
As three blind mice?

It might be a little unfair to suggest that running into the open arms of Microsoft is akin to a “career de-tailing” but it does make you wonder how bad is it over at Yahoo? After all, they have a new CEO who appears to be saying all the right things–even if some are laced with an f-bomb or two–so why would the following simply bail?

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Semantic Search Getting Social

posted on June 23, 2009

And we don’t mean Hakia’s “social network.” Yet another semantic search startup is trying to leverage the power of social networking—but this time not as a social network where you can discuss your queries, but through friends recommending related sites.

semanti_powerset_jun09aSemanti is a new semantic search engine from someone who gets why previous efforts toward semantic search has failed. As Read Write Web puts it,

Perhaps the biggest problem with natural language search is that it’s incredibly difficult to try and automate machine-assigned ontologies. Essentially, machines just don’t get it.

(Okay, okay, we just wanted to see if we could sneak the word “ontology” into two posts today.)

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Facebook Triples Advertiser Base

posted on June 23, 2009

I know you’re tired of hearing the same old “the economy is going down the tubes” sob story, so I brought you something different today—a company that’s actually increasing its advertiser base. And not just any company—a social media company (and you know how tough it is to really make money there—you know, other thank from VCs).

facebook-logoFacebook has tripled its advertiser base in the last year. Yes, tripled. Bloomberg reports on the uptick (comparing it to Google’s first sequential drop in quarterly sales last quarter), speaking with Tim Kendall, Facebook’s director of product marketing for monetization.

In case you’re wondering, the specific advertising product that’s garnered so much popularity was first unveiled in 2007. Bloomberg describes it thusly:

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Google Follows China Porn Removal Request

posted on June 23, 2009

Google China logoAs reported last week, China told Google that they didn’t want their pornography. Google filters for pornography on their Chinese site weren’t living up to the standard of the China’s main watchdog, the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center, so they were asked to make improvements. In one of the few (maybe the only?) places where Google does not dominate the search landscape it was wondered if they would move quickly to meet the demands or just continue to “work on it.”

They worked on it and apparently have removed at least some of the issues that were of concern to the Chinese Internet overseer. According to PC Advisor