The AdWords policy update rolled out in the US in June 2009 and will become effective in the UK, Ireland and Canada on September 14. Most European countries will also be able to use trademarked text as of September. This is huge news for the PPC advertising industry, as the new AdWords trademark policy will increase the relevance of UK advertisers’ campaigns and allow them to compete with the larger companies who own the trademark rights. While advertisers will be pleased by the news, trademark owners will most likely not share their excitement about the AdWords trademark policy updates, as the bidding for their trademark name pushes up the cost per click.

In addition to the AdWords trademark policy, another AdWords development is the addition of ACE – AdWords Campaign Experiments. ACE allows advertisers to run two simultaneous versions of one campaign, meaning they can experiment and find the most effective text in half the time it would have taken with the conventional before-and-after analysis. ACE will greatly increase the effectiveness of the campaigns, regardless of whether the advertiser takes advantage of the new AdWords trademark policy or not.

In the ever-changing search marketing industry, it’s good to know that Google is constantly working on innovations to make the process more efficient – of course the new Adwords trademark policy will mean a boost to Google’s profits as advertisers attempt to out-bid each other, but many will feel that the increased marketing opportunities offered by the use of trademarked keywords are worth the cost.

While Google Wave might be washed up, the company plans to maintain the Wave website until the end of 2010 and look at applying Google Wave technology to future applications. Google CEO Eric Schmidt described Google Wave as “a very clever product”, but went on to say that many users had struggled to find a use for the service on a regular basis. Google executives were upbeat about the announcement, saying they are happy to learn from their failed attempt to corner the social networking market, and hope to adapt the technology to create newer, better applications.

By comparison, the social networking tool Google Buzz is performing well. Despite the criticism and privacy concerns that accompanied the integration of Google Buzz into Gmail and Google Maps in February this year, Google tells press that the platform has tens of millions of users and has grown to be an accepted extension of Gmail.

Google has no plans to halt the progress of Google Buzz, which despite its flaws seems to be holding steady. This begs the question, are we as Internet users and social networking junkies becoming desensitised to a lack of privacy online?

While Google Wave has officially crashed, it will be interesting to see what initiative Google uses next in the quest for social networking dominance. Rumours about the development of a social networking platform called Google Me continue to circulate, and it will be interesting to see what Google developers have learned from the mistakes made with Google Wave and Google Buzz.

Basically, the most obvious benefit that will affect consumers, SEO’s and content owners is that documents will be able to be found seconds after they have been crawled. Google Caffeine is now offering a real time indexing system which is said to be “fresher” than ever before.

In a world where we want what we want and want it now, Google Caffeine will let this happen by giving us content that is more “now” and less “then.” Pushing indexing closer to real time results makes it possible for consumers to find what they want as well as SEO’s to produce what consumers are looking for. As searchers begin to expect more and more from Google results when looking for specific information, Google Caffeine will bring more relevant and instant content forward, making it easier to find something that is new.

What Google Caffeine does is that it also makes all content and not just more popular content searchable, which puts many businesses on a level playing field. This means that constant updating of site information needs to be done more thoroughly in order to keep up with those sites that will dedicate themselves to updating information constantly.

So, for SEO’s it means that instant results will return other results and businesses are able to see what works as well as what doesn’t, and can change that and have it indexed and searchable in no time.

Google Caffeine will definitely make business owners more aware of online content and there will most likely be more time spent on updating and constantly changing content because as easily as it will be written and loaded, it will now be indexed and searchable.

Here is the full explanation from the man himself:

Why is everyone so upset?

Well first of all, the major reason that everyone is up in arms is due to the fact that this HIGHLY controversial digital bill was voted into action in a MAJOR hurry and clearly wasn’t given the time and energy that such an important document should be given.

Secondly, apart from rushing the document, only 40 MP’s actually pitched up for the all important third reading of the Digital bill, followed by another 187 (alarmingly close figure to the final number of “Yes” votes) who strolled in at the end of the debate, just in time for the voting stage of the evening. Check out this link for an interesting infograph on the situation (I really hope all the images on that infograph were obtained legally and no copyrighting laws were broken).

What does the Digital bill say?

The biggest concern of the bill is clause 8 which states that any copyright holder can appeal to the Secretary of State for Business (Lord Mandelson) to block:

“a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright”

In layman’s terms, this basically means that anyone hosting, linking to or reading content which is under copyright, can have their internet connection temporarily suspended. So, if you link to a video on YouTube which has been copyrighted (which you most likely won’t know), technically, according to the Digital Economy Bill the government can force your ISP to disconnect you as well as the person responsible for hosting the video (YouTube?).

Now, as we all know, Google links to hundreds and thousands, if not millions of videos, images and music links which are most likely not all 100% copyrighted. Does this mean that Lord Mandelson and his Digital Bill are going to one day order the suspension of Google in the UK? Search Marketing specialists and Google marketing specialists will not be too impressed with this kind of decision!

Many feel that the government is succumbing too quickly and easily to requests from large music and film companies who would obviously be in favour of this Digital Bill. BBC T.V. and radio stations though also stand to benefit financially from this decision which many think has been a massive motivation for MP’s to vote for the Bill as they are all about the money it seems.

File sharing sites will also most likely be the first to be affected by the Digital Bill. Thousands of people share music, images and movies on a daily basis, not for any sort of financial benefit or anything (which would officially make it piracy), but just for the mere fact of sharing files which they have legally obtained with friends and community members. This is essentially the essence of what the internet is about, the sharing of files, knowledge and news.

When this Digital Bill is actually made law, children’s access to numerous sources of information will be restricted to few sites that will have more of a monopoly on the market, which could (in a VERY extreme case) result in all websites forcing people to pay for information instead of being able to easily and freely share it.

Reactions:

Well, 95% of people are completely outraged. Before the digital bill was even passed, 20 000 people had already contacted their MP’s in an effort to stop the bill from being made law. Since the voting for the bill, over 30 000 people have tweeted against the bill. #DeBill has become an official Twitter trend and most of those tweets are completely against the introduction of the Digital Bill.

Jim Killock, Executive Director of The Open Rights Group who has openly been the forerunner against the Digital Bill since murmurs of its introduction started months ago, stated that:

“This is an attack on everyone’s right to communicate, work and gain an education. Politicians have shown themselves to be incompetent and completely out of touch with an entire generation’s values. There are thousands of activists working with ORG planning to show up at hustings, demand answers from candidates, and who are willing to punish those who voted for this at the ballot box.”

TalkTalk who are one of the 3 major ISP’s in the UK, have vowed not to comply with government’s decision to possibly block or suspend users who are seen to be guilty of file sharing. Andrew Heaney, TalkTalk’s director of strategy and regulation, said the Digital Economy Bill clauses were “draconian”:

“This is made all the more appalling by the ability of big music and film companies to influence government and the absence of any proper debate or scrutiny by MPs – only 5% of MPs turned up for the brief debate yesterday and the other important parliamentary stages will be bypassed in the wash-up process.”

What now?

Mainstream media (The Metro) today, for the FIRST TIME, published an article about the public’s disapproval of the Digital Bill. Why only now? People have been rallying against it for months already and only now they publish a mainstream article? Interesting…or suspicious? Either way, it seems it’s a matter of “too little – too late”.

It seems for now, we will all just have to do our best to get the bill altered in our favour (mission impossible?) and continue to rise up against the Digital Bill in the hope that the internet can continue to serve as the awesome information source that it is proven to be in recent times.

How do you feel about all of this? Do you think it will affect you? Do you agree with the Government’s Bill?

The brief outlines a concept called ‘brand butlers’ and I think they’ve hit the nail on the head. In the colonial days of yesteryear butlers were employed primarily to assist people in their daily lives, to take care of the tedious administrative part of an experience so their masters could indulge in the pleasurable part. They provided a service which enhanced the lifestyle of those who could afford to pay for it.

This is exactly how businesses need to approach their online strategies. Web 2.0 has turned the internet into a user-centric environment where individuals spend time on social networks expressing parts of their life experience, which often includes their wants and needs, and their satisfaction or frustration with certain products, services and systems.

Essentially there has been a significant power shift. Previously advertisers would create a branded image aimed to elicit desire for a certain lifestyle in their target market. But online consumers are less naïve and impressionable. If they desire a particular lifestyle it is that of their contacts on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Confident in their identities they know what they want, which means that as a business you need to offer them a service, a way to supplement or enhance their existing lifestyle, rather than convince them to buy into a new one.

From Trendwatching.com’s post: “In uncertain times, there’s also a consumer longing for institutions that truly ‘care’, which is more about showing empathy and providing customers with a status fix than being purely practical. This too requires brands to master more service-oriented personae.”

Like the Trendwatching brief describes, time, convenience, control and independence are the new currencies as the consumer continuously seeks ways to streamline and better their personal experiences. They are looking to interact with brands on and individual level in a conversational manner, which will add value to their lives – not to be confused with gimmicky entertainment marketing or traditional customer service.

The brief is very detailed and provides numerous examples of good quality ‘brand bultering’: “Domino’s Pizza Tracker allows US customers to follow the progress of their pizza order from preparation through to delivery via a web interface…Beck’s Gig Finder app helps users to find local music gigs. The app’s map and GPS interface allow users to see where he or she is in relation to the gigs”.

The full post is well worth a read and will give you ideas on how best to harness the online medium for your business. An innovative and value-added approach to branding strategy coupled with good SEO is a winning recipe for online business.

There will always be twisted people who make it their mission to spoil or deface an image or content that is not intended to be offensive. I think we all shake our heads in disbelief that this content still shows up in searches and most of the time shows up on the first page results. None of us wish to dwell on content that disturbs or offends, so many of us just move on and try to forget about it. But just because offensive content disappears from our brains, it doesn’t mean that it vanishes into thin air. The question that we find ourselves asking when the thought of offensive content pops into our minds is who regulates the search results and how do the powers that be decide on what is offensive and what is not. This question raises many opinions owing to the fact that we live in such a diverse world with different religions, political associations and sexual preferences.

One of the most recent case studies of offensive content was an offensive picture of Michelle Obama, the American President’s wife. This image, a caricature of Mrs. Obama, was initially removed by Google last week owing to the fact that “the site hosting the image violated Google’s guidelines by serving malware to visitors.” Almost as soon as the image “disappeared” (because we all know that these things do not just float away on a cloud) it reappeared and its search volumes became higher than ever. Once you have Googled this image, shift your eyes upwards to the paid ads (a feature that I always ignore). There you will find a Google ad titled Offensive Search Results. Once you click on the link, up pops an explanation in which they reiterate the fact that they do not support offensive images in any way.

Even after many complaints, Google stands firm on keeping the Michelle Obama image in their search results. They claim that they will only remove content that violates their webmaster guidelines or if they have to remove something by law. They know that this image has generated millions of hits already, so maybe Google doesn’t want to let other search engines have a piece of this pie.

Despite this, I believe that Google has taken a very fresh approach to the matter of offensive content. Below the title of Offensive Search results it simply reads: “sometimes our search results can be offensive. We agree.” Those last two words form an integral part of clever advertising and it supports the well known fact that the customer is always right. They do not deny anything, but rather agree and explain.

This is not the first time that Google has been in hot water in relation to offensive content and images. So, where does one draw the line between offensive content and freedom of expression? Many argue that Google is not the government and must not act in the interest of free speech. Others believe that this image has every right to be there because if Google begins to censor certain content that is legal and does not violate the webmaster guidelines, who knows what else they will censor.

By posting this explanation of their search results, Google is watching their back and trying to be as neutral as possible. We all know that it is impossible to dictate what is offensive to some and what may be offensive to others. But does this make the old saying of “any form of advertising is good advertising” true?

Visa Europe was handling up to 1,600 transactions per minute, up 25% from last year. Commercial Director at Visa Europe, Dr Steve Perry, was quoted saying that “In the past year, we’ve seen a continued increase in online spend on Visa cards, despite the recession. In fact on November 2, 2009, we surpassed our busiest days for spend in 2008 in the UK.”

It is predicted that the busiest day for high street retailers this year will be Wednesday the 23rd of December.

Park believes that a deal will affect the internet in five ways:
• Google will use Digg`s technology and community base to liven up and improve all of its features, including Google News, Google Analytics, Google Blogger and Google Maps.
• Social media will become commercial; Digg`s community will grow beyond its current clique of techno-fundis and will explode among the general populace.
• With Google`s backing, Digg will become the largest and most powerful social media site in existence. In return, Digg will provide Google with a much sought after foothold in the social media market.
• Google will use Digg`s algorithm to enhance the voting system in its search results to improve relevance and provide greater searcher satisfaction. Park believes that the future of the web lies in social media and that Google needs Digg as much as Digg needs Google to remain relevant to the next generation of internet users.
• In exchange for Digg`s technology, Google will help Digg to improve its algorithm and voting system. As a result, it will become more difficult to game Digg`s system.

After the deal fell through, and Park realised that he had miscalculated the urgency and the importance of a Google-Digg partnership, he invited 15 SEO/SEM experts to share their opinions on the matter. Almost all of them share the belief that a Google-Digg deal is inevitable, but their opinions as to why, and what effect the deal will have on the net differ widely.

Alex Delibas and Bill Hartzer, for instance, don`t believe that a deal between the two companies will have much effect on the net at all. The two companies will continue as separate entities, largely as they have before. Hartzer adds that he doesn`t think the deal will do much to increase Digg`s community or bring the social media site to the attention of a wider audience.

Debra Mastaler and Lyndon Antcliff believe that the deal is about showcasing Google`s power and domination, and that the deal actually has very little value in itself. Glen Allsop and David Wallance believe that Google would be better off trying to acquire Mixx.

Gabriel Goldenberg thinks that the deal will favour those who already use social media and social marketing aggressively in their SEM campaigns, and that those who haven`t established a tangible presence online will fall further and further behind.

Jordan Kasteler and Wiep Knol think that while Digg`s user base will grow, it will lose most if its original and most loyal supporters because its content will become more commercial and mainstream. While Roger Montti misses the bus completely by saying that social media is actually only a very small part of the internet, which is used mainly as an appliance whose purpose to inform and entertain.

I don`t know how anyone can say with any certainty that a Google-Digg deal will definitely come about. If Microsoft and Yahoo! have taught us anything, surely it`s to treat all virtual mergers and acquisitions with suspicion until the papers have been signed and the champagne flows like water.

And while it is inevitable that the internet will evolve to meet changing user needs, and while social media is growing in terms of user numbers and power, I think it unlikely that a single deal (albeit between two rather prominent companies) contains enough seismic power to alter the virtual landscape as dramatically as Parks predicted.

Genius is very much in the eye of the beholder, which is what makes advertising so difficult. Trying to appeal to a target audience, no matter how niche or how much they have in common, is always going to be an uphill battle simply because there is no accounting for taste. Online advertising has an advantage over traditional advertising media because advertisers can tailor their campaigns for a more specific audience. Online advertisers also benefit from greater interactivity. Appealing, interesting or quirky adverts are likely to go viral and spread rapidly across the Net. But subjectivity still rears its ugly head and advertisers could find their hard work going viral for the wrong reasons. A bad advert or failed campaign that goes viral can do a great damage to a company`s credibility; making a lie of the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Relevance is a key problem in all forms of advertising. How do you create a campaign that addresses the unique needs of all the members of your target market? In a fairly controversial move, many companies are researching and collecting data about Internet users` online activity. The data collected will give them insight into the interests and search habits of users, and will allow advertisers to target individuals with specific, highly relevant ad campaigns. The theory is that users will no longer be subjected to annoying and irrelevant ads but will receive ads tailored to their specific tastes. Advertisers will also benefit from a greater number of conversions and ROI.

The problem with the theory is that people don`t like having their online habits monitored. They feel that they are being spied on, that their privacy is violated and that they can`t trust advertisers not to do anything nefarious with the information, like sell it to malicious marketers or unscrupulous spammers. And once Internet users decide that they don`t like something, it`s very difficult to change their minds. ISPs have guaranteed that all user information remains completely anonymous, that ISP addresses are not stored and that there is no chance of information falling into the wrong hands, and still Internet users protest.

I believe that their primary concern is one of control. Despite the fact that the Internet is pretty much run by Google, people have the perception that they are in control of their actions online. They control their searches, they control their level of interaction, they control what they decide to contribute and take away from their web experience. Any threat to that perception of control and hackles rise automatically and heels are dug in in protest.

Consumers will have to get used to the idea of personal information being used to create specially targeted ad campaigns because “message customisation” (as DoshDosh puts it) is the way of the future. Quividi, a French marketing technology firm, has created an intuitive digital advertisement that uses a camera and computer to monitor the people walk past or stop and look at a billboard advertisement. Data collected includes the number of people walking in front of the screen, how many looked at the screen and how much time they spent looking at the screen. It differentiates between genders and changes the face of the ad so that men and women see different screens. Quividi hopes to further distinguish between different ages and family groups as they develop their technology.

That kind of advertising I can get on board with. It`s relatively non-invasive and is based purely on physical characteristics. It`s still optional in that it doesn`t force itself on the general public. Holosonic, a US technology company, however, has taken things a couple steps too far. They have developed the Audio Spotlight, which projects a beam of sound into a small area around it. It`s effective to a distance of about 60ft, which is quite far. The purpose is to “startle and entertain” people who enter the zone, but will remain inaudible to all those passing outside it. In my opinion this is invasive, intrusive and a gross violation of personal space (although you are free to disagree). I do not want anything beamed into my head, thank you very much. I certainly wouldn`t find the experience “entertaining”. I would find it disturbing and alarming and would probably have to stop off at a shrink on my way home. Target my Internet user information if you will, but stay out of my head.

According to Maki from DoshDosh, ad campaigns of the future will be designed as “favourable interruptions which pre-empt consumer needs”. And this is great. Maki says that companies will have to keep up-to-date with developments in technology so that they will be aware of all the new and innovative ways to target their audience. They will also gain invaluable information regarding the behaviour of their audience and will be better able to understand them. He says that advertisers will have to learn to take consumer involvement into account and that they need to let go of the need for absolute control. And this is also great.

But aside from the odd quirky or entertaining advert, I fail to see a future where advertisements become “favourable interruptions”. An interruption is almost by definition unfavourable. We`re already so overloaded with information that comes at us from all sides and in all forms that we`re largely desensitised to what goes on around us. I don`t see a future for advertising that dramatically changes that. Advertising will always have its place in marketing, and there is no doubt that highly relevant, highly targeted ads will be a boon to the industry and consumers alike, but I don`t believe that it will ever be regarded as anything other than a ploy to capture attention.

This raises a number of issues: of all the places to update news, why was Wikipedia the obvious and most effective choice; how did the nature of search affect the story; and what impact did Wikipedia as a source have on the framing of the news?

From a search engine`s point of view, Wikipedia is a voice of authority – the number one organic result – on subjects ranging from data recovery to Zip the Pinhead. Wikipedia`s rules support strictly neutral points of view as “the most important editing guideline”, and it has the power of the people on its side. I`d argue that if information appears on Wikipedia, it`s often accepted as common knowledge (“But even Wikipedia says so!”).From that point of view, it makes huge sense to publish news on Wikipedia if your aim is to attract attention. Although users may edit articles without registering for a username, everyone has to follow the “Wiki process” of citation checking and board approval before publishing content – so Wiki knowledge is both popular and verified. In the story of Tim Russert, because Wikipedia was well ranked (and that affected the way visitors received Wikipedia`s news), search engines helped to spread the facts about how he died unexpectedly.

From an SEO`s point of view, Wikipedia can be a useful tool for publishing neutral information, although many SEOs think its authority is unearned. I can`t see any harm in entering Wikipedia`s Adopt-a-user mentorship program and learning how to play the game, especially as whingeing about its relationship with Google is pointless. Because smart SEOs will keep up-to-date summaries of their previous Wiki contributions, and are in a position to understand Wikipedia`s outgoing and incoming link architecture, they can be successful contributors to Wiki`s knowledge base. As long as they understand knowledge neutrality and are able to see the difference between facts and bias, Wikipedia can be a useful social tool – just like Digg or Facebook or LinkedIn – within an holistic search marketing solution. If SEOs learn how to use Wikipedia for news and commercial knowledge dissemination (and they probably will, if Wikipedia sustains Google`s favour), we may be looking at a Wikipedia revolution.

From a reader`s point of view – and with copyleft licensing, this is the most important viewpoint – Wikipedia is not always the best source, but it`s the quick source. Through search engines, Wikipedia`s contributor base is growing exponentially, which supports its basic tenement that any author may contribute to its articles. I`d argue that in this way, Wikipedia is getting to be more right, more often – as the story of the newscaster demonstrates. To me, this example of news breaking first online (out from under television’s nose) is a forerunner of a general leaning towards publicly compiled information, with Wikipedia as its running hero.