Marketing Pilgrim

Back in February, Google, Yahoo and then-Live premiered a solution to on-site duplicate content: a canonical URL element that let you designate which version official word was, of course, that the element is still just one signal.) Unfortunately, that element only worked within a single domain—if you had your content copied on another domain, no joy.

Until now. Yesterday on the Webmaster blog, Google announced a new cross-domain canonical URL element. Now, if you have the same content on two domains, you can indicate to search engines which one is the preferred URL.

The element uses the same syntax as the prior version, but now you can indicate the canonical URL is on a different domain:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.NEWexample.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish" />

When will the "top blah, blah list of 2009" madness stop?

I’m thinking that once Wolfram|Alpha releases its "top mathematical equations of 2009" list, we’ll know that it’s time to move on.

In the meantime, YouTube is taking great delight in telling us the kind of junk we all enjoyed watching online. If this is any indication of our what we watch on the web, I’m pretty sure that TV networks don’t have to worry about online video cannibalizing their audiences:

Most Watched YouTube videos (Global):
1. Susan Boyle – Britain’s Got Talent (120+ million views)
2. David After Dentist (37+ million views)
3. JK Wedding Entrance Dance (33+ million views)
4. New Moon Movie Trailer (31+ million views)
5. Evian Roller Babies (27+ million views)

While many people already lie on their Facebook profile despite the pleas by Privacy Czar Mark Zuckerberg to keep the Facebook database clean for YOUR benefit, it is now an informally ‘recommended’ practice by some at Facebook. Before we move forward, let’s put this on the table first. Facebook’s move toward less privacy for its users may have profoundly changed the service once the full scope of what they are looking to do hits the masses. It will be hard to look at the service without seeing them trying to squeeze every last dollar out of it at the expense of the privacy and safety of its users.

Before we get into the meat of the article I have a challenge for you. Say “Top Twitter Trends” 3 times fast. Frustrating isn’t it. Every time I try it I end up saying “Top Twitter Twends” thus giving the Baba WaWa (Barbara Walters for you young kids) sound to it. As you have likely guessed I think I may have too much time on my hands so let’s get back to the real deal.

Twitter is one of the Top stories of 2009 because of its tremendous growth, the tremendous amount of media attention it has gained and the general feeling that 140 characters is more than enough to form a relationship with. What the folks at Twitter have done, in particular Chief Scientist Abdur (don’t these people have last names or when they come on board the Twitter team do they have to even shorten their names as well?) is take a look at the top trends that have been ID’d by Twitter users for 2009. Fun stuff. Not earth shattering but fun. At the Twitter blog Abdur says:

Deloitte’s 2009 State of the Media Democracy report was released today. Unsurprisingly, it reports that TV has become more popular in the struggling economy (beating out other forms of entertainment). But the big news might be two of the “lesser” findings—about online recommendations and the mobile Internet.

Online recommendations are becoming increasingly influential, especially compared with online advertising. Online advertising doesn’t stack up against its offline counterparts—83% of those surveyed cited TV advertising as having an impact on their buying decisions, but less than half mentioned online advertising among their top three. Even clicking through to another site has dropped from 72% to 59% over the last three years. (Only half would click more on more targeted ads, down from two-thirds last go round.)

Google’s Marissa Mayer talked with the Telegraph recently about her vision for Google’s future—and not surprisingly, she has an expansive vision for what information Google should index and provide to us. An “omnivorous” Google, she calls it.

Somehow, I don’t think it’s entirely accidental that she sees a Google that eats everything (rather than, say, knows everything [omniscient], considering the interpretation is apparently “one which is able to take a user’s total context – where they are, what they were just reading, which direction their mobile phone is pointed and so on”). One of the most important sources she wants to tap for better search results is social networks—and while they have already made deals with Twitter for up-to-the-minute results, she wants something a whole lot more “personalized.”