Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

There's a Possum in Your Kitchen, or the Best and Worst Viral Calling Campaign Ever

The phone rings. It's a vaguely familiar voice saying there's a possum in your kitchen, or your car's about to be towed, or someone found your doll collection. At the end, there's some reference to pizza. That's it.

The call's courtesy of a DiGiorno pizza MySpace page that presents The Ditcher, and it's one of the best and worst campaigns I've seen. As a consumer, I love it. As an ad agency exec, I'm less convinced.

The idea is that you can set up a time to get a call or text message with an excuse. But it's really fun when you schedule it to ring others.

Here's what's fresh:

• It's easy to use - you just enter a name, a phone number, select the excuse, and pick the time. It takes under a minute.
• The excuses range from the plausible (the possum in the kitchen bit is great for anyone living a bit outside of a city, though many are far more likely than that, such as a kid having trouble in school to a washing machine haywire) to the less likely (a celebrity wants to party with you). The variety of options make it easy to think of lots of people to use it with.
• The recipient doesn't know who's sending it, so you can remain anonymous if you choose.
• There are several calls to action to print a coupon.
• Mrs. Purple Kisses says it's the best idea ever in the comments. And who dares argue with Mrs. Purple Kisses?

Here's what's stale:

• You can only schedule calls on the hour. If you're trying to get someone in a certain time and place, it might not work.
• There's no clear privacy policy, so conceivably DiGiorno could be doing whatever it wants with the phone numbers. I'm still using it freely, so hopefully DiGiorno won't abuse it. Oddly, there are lots of privacy seals and assurances when you go to print the coupon.
• There's no mobile couponing. Given the phone tie-in and the young audience on MySpace, that's a missed opportunity.
• The anonymity is a pro and a con. You can't spoof who the sender is, and the call appears to come from a random number.
• The biggest downside for DiGiorno is that no one who I've pranked is clear that this is coming from DiGiorno or what this has to do with them, and they can't come back in turn to the site. So it promotes a lot of engagement from the people who see the MySpace page, but none from the viral nature of it unless the sender later tells them where to make their own calls.

Stumbling Upon Discovery And Search

Here's today's Search Insider. I actually planned to write a new headline for it as this was a half-written working title, but I must have zoned out right before I sent it in. Here's the column, originally in MediaPost and continuing in the extended entry.

Stumbling Upon Discovery and Search

“It pays to discover” may not just be a slogan; it’s emerging as the maxim for how people find information online.

Last week, right after I released a column on “The Fine Line Between Search and Discovery,” three reports came out from Radar Networks, StumbleUpon, and ClipBlast that offer more clues on how search and discovery are converging and diverging.

The Decline of Search?

The most provocative discussion comes from a TechCrunch post, “Is Keyword Search About to Hit Its Breaking Point?” The post features analysis from Nova Spivack, CEO and founder of Radar Networks, which created Twine, featured in Kaila Colbin’s column last week. Spivack says that as we move from Web 2.0 (2000-2010) to Web 3.0 and beyond and the volume of data keeps climbing, the productivity of search starts to decline.

The solution, according to Spivack, is to make the data smarter. While TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld notes that making the data more intelligent can scale, the reliance on search is still going to increase, and the engines themselves will need to keep evolving. It’s not an either/or proposition. A further point comes from the white paper Google scientists presented in China last week about new image search technology that doesn’t rely on keywords; Google may move beyond keywords to index images, but that will lead consumers to search more for images as the technology becomes more reliable.

Stumbling upon Happiness

TechCrunch’s Schonfeld added to his discovery coverage with his report on StumbleUpon registering its five millionth member. StumbleUpon allows users to discover new sites, vote on them, and share them, largely through the use of a toolbar.  It’s also a favorite of search engine optimization professionals, as it was a hot topic at SMX Social Media last week. StumbleUpon has even spawned imitators, including X-rated content discovery site StumblePorn (the homepage is safe for work, though the rest probably isn’t).

Google Blocked My Search

Google, are you a little temperamental today?

While I've heard of this happening before, it's the first time it happened to me: Google attempted to block my search.

I tried Googling "Burst Media" (I was doing research for a presentation), and the screenshot below appeared, also seemingly accessible at this link (click for a larger image; I had trouble posting it bigger):

I'm not sure what Google has against ad networks, and I had no problem conducting the search after. Maybe instead of this error message, Google can just put up a giant ad for AdSense.

The full text of the error is below, in case it's easier to see than the image:

We're sorry...

... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application.  To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

If you're continually receiving this error, you may be able to resolve the problem by deleting your Google cookie and revisiting Google. For browser-specific instructions, please consult your browser's online support center.

If your entire network is affected, more information is available in the Google Web Search Help Center.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google.

 

  To continue searching, please type the characters you see below:

Live Blogging Mobile Monday NY

At Mobile Monday NY at the Samsung Experience in the Time Warner Center, Columbus Circle. Okay, so there are too many panelists on stage (seven white guys) that I can't associate everything said here to the right person. But I'll at least try to cover it.

• Huge factor determining mobile web usage: low-priced unlimited data plans; once people have them, usage skyrockets
• Mobile search accounts for 1% of search volume of major engines even as mobile web users rival web users
• Taptu: How many search queries are for mobile-specific content? Content's different on mobile. Lots of adult searches, reflecting early stages of mobile web, similar to early days of desktop internet. Lots of content search - entertainment. People are using mobile in social situations where the content's relevant.
• Dean's question from Amethon: What are you not getting out of Omniture you want to see from mobile? Dan from ESPN: Omniture will give you a whole lot of empty slots but won't populate them. Our challenge: we want FRM - "fan relationship management." We want to know what people are doing on all platforms. We want 'this is what you did, what you care about, who you are.' He wants to tell advertisers, here's a guy who's this demo, lives here, loves the Yankees.
• White guy #6: Issue: 500-1,000 web browsers - different screen sizes. ESPN can't tell what % of clients are mobile, and if they can, what % support streaming video. ESPN: they actually can track it but had to build it.
• White Guy #5: location-based is huge differentiator from desktop to mobile
• WG #2: Google analytics has heavy pageload, tough for mobile pages
• These chairs... not the most comfortable... tempted to live blog this standing up. it's egalitarian though - the speakers don't have better chairs either
• Dean - Amethon (#7): Now 5% of handsets run javascript. In a few years it'll be 95%.
• WG #6: As Omniture, others can integrate, some just want mobile analytics API, pulled from there into Omniture dashboard.
• WG #1: Uses carrier, device database for mobile-specific analytics. Centralized dashboard important. On ad front, lots of ad players now. For clients, they're an ad aggregator. Based on eCPM, tries to find best ad service.
• WG #6: Google not transparent if you're a publisher. Analytics issues carry over here for publishers, advertisers. Integrating networks and comparing performance is tough. People are blind right now. With ad networks, it's very important.
• 8pm now, one hour in. A number of people took off.
• WG #7 - Amethon: Packet-sniffing technology. Only vendor at the moment. A positive - they see all the traffic. A negative: if you implement it, you need a dedicated server. Greg from Mobilytics uses Amazon (according to Dean).
• WG #6 - Greg: You need actual log files.
• Moderator: Bryson: How does Google's mobile search compared to Taptu? Stephen from taptu: we're only certain searches, content and entertainmentt. We measure # of clicks to get to good result. Our target: good result in 30 seconds or less. Now 35-37 seconds. For competitors, best competitor is 1:07, others approaching 3 minutes. But Taptu's only entertainment, so easier job.
• Taptu: links less relevant on mobile web. They use different algorithm. Cross linking not prominent on mobile. Especially true for social-related searches. Taptu's approach: looks at popularity of pages as measured by social scores. Take MySpace - ton of user-generated content. Popularity of artist page can be measured by artist profile views, popularity of song by measure of song. 10 artists on MySpace call themselves U2 (tribute bands, etc). Only one has the real U2's social scores. That leads to more precise relevance, better performance
• WG #2: Not a big fan of voice driven search. Performance not great.
• Dean from Amethon (WG #7): Download Microsoft Tellme. Great quality. (Figures - doesn't work on my Verizon Samsung, while he plugs it at the Samsung store).
• WG #3 (Adam, Bango): You could only promote via SMS 2 years ago. Now mobile search enabled wider audience.
• WG #3 (Bango): Carriers control most location-based info.   
• ESPN: Instead of targeting location, can, say, target NYers by targeting Yankees box scores.
• WG #5: Wants opt-out mechanism for location based targeting. Amethon: Who cares? Most in this room don't care. WG #6: Would you rather see relevant ad, or would you want a cosmetics ad when you're watching the Yankees game? [Bonus of live-blogging - you capture all the sexism. WTG, Greg. But hey, we get the point.]
• WG #7 - Mobilytics: Percent of browsers supporting cookies: 3% Greg from Mobilytics: MUCH higher - 40%. All over the map. WG #2: 30-40% of browser sessions can take cookies - 3% is ludicrous. Nice, conflict!
• ESPN (WG #4): What % of browsers THAT MATTER support cookies? 90%+. Most of the mobile web apps now do assume some use of cookies.
• WG #2: 80% of browser traffic in 20% of browsers. I think I got that right.
• Where's WG #1? Just happy to be there, I guess.
• My 3 kvetches: the chairs, lack of food (a 7-9 event and no food? what's rationing coming to?), and internet cutting out every 10 minutes (though a big plus that samsung store has free, fast wifi)
• WG #1 must have heard me typing, finally spoke. Said something about the iPhone, which I missed. But also unusual that it's a mobile panel and the iPhone was barely mentioned tonight. Yes, kids, there's more to mobile than the iPhone.

On that note, we'll wrap it up.

• Nevermind. Bryson's asking more questions. Doesn't he know I'm hungry? I hope my text got through to my wife to order dinner for me. I'm going to skip out, so check Bryson's blog tomorrow for coverage to get his take, and to see what I missed when I went to get dinner.
• Okay, not much was missed. I held out for a few minutes and we're finally wrapping to network and then go. Great panel all around. I hope you found the live blog useful.
   

Event Details:

Moderator:

• Bryson Meunier, Resolution Media

Panelists:

• Dean Collins, Amethon
• Joe Cuccinelli, Quattro Wireless
• Dan Mason, ESPN Mobile Web
• Adam Kerr, Bango
• Greg Harris, Mobilytics
• Stephen Ives, taptu
• Stan Wiechers, TigTags

Your Hosts:

• Lubna Dajani, Stratemerge
• David Harper, Winksite

When:
Monday, April 28 2008 at 7:00 PM (until 9:00 PM)

Media Sponsorship Policy Reviewed

CK, one of the toughest critics when it comes to social media and marketing best practices, reviews my Media Sponsorship Policy on her blog (the policy's posted here). She posted her review after an email back and forth where she also made a few great suggestions for improving it, so it's stronger now than it was a few days ago.

Her coverage is some of the most gratifying coverage I've received. She writes:

Why am I pleased? Because of:

• How David is looking to add value to his blog (clever!) while bringing value to his readers.
• How his new sponsorship is rooted in an authentic passion of his--seriously, that dude gets around a lot, and speaks at and attends conferences left, right and center.
• How upfront and respectful his policy is of his blog's audience.
• How responsive he has been to all my questions and recommendations.

Read her whole entry for how this connects to her three-point (or four-point) paradigm for bloggers accepting freebies.

How to Twitter an Event

There's a lot of discussion now around how Twitter can be used at events. It gets even more interesting when the people on stage try to use it to monitor the reactions to what they're saying. Jeremiah Owyang discussed his own experience as a moderator at Web 2.0 where Twitter helped him gauge audience feedback, leading to a quicker shift to audience Q&A.

I used Twitter last week at the SMX Social Media event when I was a speaker on a panel. I was the third of three speakers to present, and as the presentations were 15-20 minutes each, I had a chance to tweet some quick reports about the other speakers' talks while interacting with the audience (generally people I was already following at the show). It felt a little wrong to be tapping away on the mobile phone during the panel, but it also gave me a new way to connect with people in the audience.

I'm more intrigued by the idea of monitoring Twitter while moderating. The best way will be by monitoring a search engine; Jeremiah told me Tweet Scan is mobile-friendly. Jeremiah and I emailed a bit about this; here are a few other thoughts that he welcomed me posting here:

• People are more honest on Twitter, saying how they really feel, both good and bad. But often they tend to act like jerks, where they would never say it in real life.

• I surprised a few people that were tweeting about ME while I was on stage. As I called out what they said (but didn't say who it was from, as I didn't want to be a jerk) the tone immediately changed.

• At a minimum, a speaker or mod should monitor the back channel, but keep the focus on those on stage.

• Speaking solo, well that's very, very tough to monitor, and one should enlist someone to watch on their behalf, and use hand signals, or take a Twitter break after 15 minutes or so (Robert Scoble does this).

It still can be tough to monitor Twitter even if you're on a panel. When the discussion is really interactive and it's flowing, you don't want to lose the flow. But it's also possible that the flow you're so wrapped up in isn't resonating with the audience, whether it's over their heads or just a lot of blather. A point person in the audience can help.

I do want to try out new ways of using Twitter to be a better moderator and panelist though. I'll have a few opportunities coming up. While my next event at the Magazine Publishers of America tomorrow is so intimate that I don't anticipate needing Twitter (and I doubt the crowd's the right fit for it), Digital Hollywood next week looks more promising as at least a few people in the room should be tweeting. I'll also be curious to check it out during MediaPost's Search Insider Summit, which is designed to be especially conversational this year. I just created a Twitter channel for it at SISummit (you can view my upcoming events here; I'm also on dopplr to share travel schedules).

If you've used Twitter at an event, share your experience in the comments, whether you were on stage, or you were in the audience when someone on stage used it, or you were in the audience communicating with others in the room.

Social Networking Wars

I had no time to watch this, but it had all the animation quality of 80s Saturday morning cartoons with subject matter much closer to my heart than Voltron. The best part? MySpace fearing it will turn into Friendster. Here's Social Networking Wars from Current.com. Enjoy.

Now is Gone - Book Review

Earlier this month, in the column Search Marketing by the Book, I mentioned I hadn't read Geoff Livingston's highly acclaimed Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs. Geoff commented on the post and offered to send a review copy, and I was able to plow through it on my recent trip to Dallas.

I'm a big fan of the Now is Gone blog; I've been reading it for months, and it's one of the greatest sources of information for posts that I forward on to my colleagues (though admittedly I'm remiss about sharing my favorites here, on Twitter, or elsewhere).

As for the book, it's a great primer for public relations professionals and a good primer for marketers who don't have too much experience with social media marketing. As a starting point, it's one of the most accessible books I've read. As Geoff notes in the book, the focus is on strategy and not tactics, so it's not a how-to guide. There's more of that in Groundswell.

It's tough reviewing this book as someone who works in the social media space, as I'm not the target audience for the book. I already know most of the case studies in the book, from Coke's Virtual Thirst to GM's Fastlane blog, and the strategies are all familiar. Yet would I recommend this to a PR executive or client looking to get started? Absolutely. A friend of mine who's a PR consultant laments about how some execs at a firm he works with is years behind on all of this, and I'd easily recommend he use this book to educate them.

The other challenge with this book is Groundswell. That book is the most important book on social media I've read, one I can't recommend enough for people in so many different roles at so many different types of organizations. In some ways, this book is Groundswell Lite. That can also be an advantage though. For someone who needs a quicker read to wade into social media marketing, Now is Gone is the first book I'd recommend. Groundswell, though, has the strategy and case studies (far more of both), along with the first-hand research, plus the insights from two gifted analysts.

If you're only going to read one book on social media, go for Groundswell. If the whole notion of Groundswell intimidates the heck out of you, or you need a one-sitting airplane, pick up Now is Gone.

Coverage of My Panel at SMX

For thorough coverage of my panel at SMX Social Media today, head to Bruce Clay's blog where Lisa Barone captures it all, from the case studies to the Q&A.

You can find more color from the event by checking out @smx, @davidberkowitz, and running Tweet Scan on SMX. Even H&R Block ( @hrblock ) got to join in the fun and participate virtually. I also covered the Jason Calacanis and Jimmy Wales panel yesterday. If you're covering this event on your blog, Twitter, Flickr, or elsewhere, share the links in the comments.

It was great meeting so many skilled pros and eager entrants in the social media space there; with any luck I'll get to another SMX event soon, as it was a great mix of education and networking.

Liveblogging SMX Social Media: Jason Calacanis, Jimmy Wales, and Steven Marder on Social Search

Note: during live blogging, see my comments on Twitter

Steven Marder, Eurekster
Distributed social search & discovery. Eurekster focus: help publishers create specialized search engines (with video, image, text, etc; prioritize certain domains) which learn from consumers' usage. Value proposition: focus on editorial control. Custom search engine, the Swicki, also available as a widget. It uses publishers and users, algorithms and humans. Now, 100,000 engines by 23,000+ publishers.

Jimmy Wales, Wikia Search 0.2
Big differentiator for them: all of it's open-source. "Search has been a black box for too long. We have only the vaguest idea of why and how Google ranks things." [There are some people in the room who might disagree.] He notes Wikia Search's results "are not very good right now." Only crawling small subset of the web. No stealth mode startup phase. Anybody can add a URL to the displayed results. Anyone can add, delete comments, or spotlight an entry to help make results easier to find if they'r enot yet high enough. WS0.2 includes related searches, also open to debate.

Big challenge: spam will emerge. Wikipedia: link spam not as much an issue. In the search space "there are a lot of economically motivated bad actors." Lots of tools to manage deletion, undeletion. Bad guys can be blocked. There's social pressure where people's reputation among their connections matters. Some features are on the site now, others are in the works.

My main question: even with all of this crowdsourcing, will it be better than Google? That's the acid test and all that matters.

Jason Calacanis, Mahalo
Human-powered ssearch engine - "ungameable." The search engines themselves have issues - eg for searches on "paris hotels," Google has affiliate spam high up, and on Ask you can't tell what's an ad or natural. Mahalo's more organized. Refers to "the second click service." For Paris hotels, Mahalo cross-references what all its main travel sites say about each major hotel listed, mimicking user behavior.

Trust score built for each individual submitting links. "Google essentially created the SEO industry... if you spend your time on SEO and not building a great site, it's basically wasted energy." It's a 'duh' comment from Jason, a kind of straw man, except that there are some SEOs who need to hear it.

Mahalo Social: when seeing people's recommendations on the sidebar for searches, two factors matter: how close they are (degrees away, a la LinkedIn) and their trust score.

Calacanis's vision for Mahalo: it'll take $50 million to build it out, $100 million a year to keep it going, with an editorial staff of thousands.

Refers to "curated search" as alternative to human powered.

For SEO, he says a huge problem is that a lot of the clients have "sucky" sites that don't deserve to be ranked. The job of a good SEO is to fix that. And a good SEO also won't try to get sites to rank for queries that the page has no business appearing for. He compares it to great companies not hiring PR firms. He's wrong about PR too though. Today I've received emails from five PR people who represent five different companies that can all claim to be great in their own way. And I probably would have no interaction with those five companies right now if the PR people didn't send me a heads up. This one hit a nerve; I love PR folks, and while there many who don't do a good job (there are bad teachers, firemen, and sanitation workers too), most I've met are pretty sharp if not brilliant. And I'll note that PR folks are definitely overrepresented among my personal friends - even more so than search engine optimizers, who are also alright in my book.