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Improved Access to Government Information

posted on November 15, 2007

I’ve now written a number of different posts for Marketing Pilgrim and not once have I referenced the name Google. Not because I believe that they are not news worthy or that they aren’t doing things that I believe are interesting but rather because everyone else seems to focus on and cover Google so well. On Tuesday Google finally forced my hand and did something compelling enough to motivate me to write about them.

The Google policy blog made a post that initially felt a bit like a rah-rah speech, because Google reminded all of it’s readers that it has been and is assisting state governments in making their public domain information more accessible. Google notes their work with states like Arizona, California, and Virginia and while this is all well and good for everyone.

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How To Create User Generated Link Bait

posted on November 9, 2007

A few days ago I touched on a post about whether or not User Generated Content (UGC) was a Myth. Now I have discovered a great post from Tom Critchlow, talking about taking the next step up and going from UGC to User Generated Link Bait (UGL).

Tom provides a terrific step by procedure to follow to generate UGL.

  1. Find a forum with a decent traffic level in your niche
  2. Spend some time contributing to the community, get your name respected and ensure the mods don’t see you as a spammer (having a trusted profile in your niche community/forum is worth its weight in gold—treat this as a serious investment and don’t ruin it for a one-shot chance at linkbait)

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Is User Generated Content a Myth?

posted on November 7, 2007

I enjoyed reading Scott Karp’s thoughts on sites like YouTube, which focus on User Generated Content (UGC), being media for real creative talent to be discovered. What I don’t agree with is the way in which he chooses to subscribe to the idea that an average person’s contribution to the same site is not commercially viable.

Scott does a very nice job on covering the latest talent discovery for Apple and its iTouch product, where a young man from England was discovered by Apple execs after posting a very high quality amateur commercial online. Scott goes on to imply that maybe the commercial was posted on YouTube with the intent for the young man to be discovered or that maybe Apple had generated the idea itself and was attempting to create some marketing buzz via the amazing discovery that they made of this young talent.

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Do Not Track Registry; Good Idea or Ill-conceived?

posted on November 2, 2007

As Andy already reported, organizations from consumer, privacy, and technology groups recently proposed the development of a “do not track” list in hopes of providing consumers the ability to prevent advertising networks from being able to track which websites consumers are visiting. The proposed “do not track” list was based on the idea of and is being compared to the “do not call” list that the FTC implemented in 2003 with significant success.

Conceptually the idea seems acceptable but the truth is it also seems extremely unrealistic. The following information is quoted directly from the proposal:

”Companies providing web, video, and other forms of browser applications should provide functionality (i.e., a browser feature, plug-in, or extension) that allows users to import or otherwise use the “do not track” list of domain names, keep the list up-to-date, and block domains on the list from tracking their internet activity.”

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Forget Silicon Valley for a Startup, Try NYC Instead

posted on October 25, 2007

Last week Paul Graham said Silicon Valley was the only place worth being, if you want to have the best chance for success in launching your own Internet startup. This week Charlie O’Donnell has broken down and dissected the idea that creating a startup in NYC is not nearly as challenging as one might believe it to be.

In fact Charlie goes into a fairly in depth discussion of acquisition not only of space in NYC, but also talent, legal advice, and funding. With all of that said Charlie feels that the true value of success is most likely industry knowledge and expertise above and beyond anything else.

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Silicon Valley is the Only Place for Startups

posted on October 16, 2007

This month Paul Graham has told the world that the only place to be is Silicon Valley if you want to have the very best chance of being a successful startup.  Paul an active voice in Y Combinator even encourages his Boston based startups to move to Silicon Valley.  Boston is the second largest startup hub in the US and the world for that fact, but still Paul believes startups should still move and he believes he can make a strong case for that belief.

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Are Newspapers Squandering Yahoo Ad Opportunities?

posted on October 9, 2007

By Roderick Ioerger

image The newspaper industry has been feeling a lot of pressure for some time now to reverse the industry trend and restore revenue growth. In November of 2006 Yahoo and a consortium of seven newspaper companies came to an agreement opening up 176 different newspapers to one of the world largest online communities.

Yahoo’s HotJobs service was the key piece of the revenue puzzle, allowing the newspapers to take advantage of the technology platform that Yahoo had already created by driving sales of the HotJobs service for hundreds if not thousands of local businesses in each market. The other element and maybe the more important one long term for the newspapers is the use of Yahoo’s technology to be able to sell advertising across the newspapers entire web site.