Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

Search Insider: Newsitis

This is one of the wackier columns I've penned in awhile, and it felt good to write. It starts off with a quote from Cara, who's been quoted on this blog before and inspired her share of articles, branches off into documenting a faux disease NEWSITIS, and then it manages to offer some lessons for search marketing agencies. I'm not entirely sure if it all worked, but readers commented generously. A colleague best summed it up saying, "It was cute. Not cute in that trivial kind of way, but in the other way." I think I know what she meant, so, thanks. Meanwhile, I'll let you decide for yourself.

From the column:

An exchange last week with my significant other summed up a lot of what I'm hearing right now about the fast and furious developments in the interactive industry.

"I'm so over MySpace," said Cara.

I asked in return,

"If you're so over MySpace, what are you into?"

"I don't know," she said. "It's just easier being over something."

Can you tell why I'm crazy about her? She then fell asleep, and I scrounged for a pen and paper. What Cara experienced is one symptom of a pervasive syndrome that is on the verge of becoming a pandemic.

The syndrome isn't yet well documented in medical journals. It was once noted in an Austrian paper as Schmidt, Semel und Gates Krankheit, but it was never submitted, as the author later confessed he was "so over" his own research. For this American publication, we can refer to the disorder as New Economy Warp Speed Is Too Intense Syndrome, or NEWSITIS.

Read the rest at MediaPost.

Hooray for Widgets

Thanks to the new widgets from TypePad (maybe they're not so new; maybe I just never figured out how to use them before), I now have a few new bells and whistles on the blog.

My personal favorite: FeedBlitz, at the top right. You can subscribe to this blog, and any other blog using it, so you get daily e-mail updates when there's a new post. For me, this is a lot easier than feed readers or bookmarks or anything. It's your call - if you like getting information this way, you at least have the option.

I'm also now in Technorati and Feedster (there's a Technorati link at the bottom right; I don't think I got the Feedster link to work). I also tried setting up a Eurekster Swicki, but it wouldn't automatically update on my site.

The ultimate bonus for me is that with these widgets, many of which even work, I don't have to consider switching to a different blog publishing tool. Still, if anyone can figure out why my columns sometimes get a little messed up, please let me know.

Thanks for your readership.

Keystone or Bust

I have the pleasure of helping MediaPost program its first-ever Search Insider Summit July 19-22 in Keystone, CO. If you're interested in attending, speaking, sponsoring, or participating in any way, drop me a line. (At left: an artist's rendering of a rejected logo for the event)

Book Pick: The Way We Eat

I try to mix up my reading as much as possible, throwing in a mix of business, modern fiction, classic literature, history, sports, and some miscellaneous other genres. I've recorded write-ups on them all in a book report journal, which I mentioned in a past blog post, but I've only now discovered there's no search form on my blog. Go figure.

One of the latest entries in the journal: The Way We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. I found it downstairs at The Strand during a random visit. Without being preachy, Singer and Mason explore three families' eating habits, determine where their food really comes from, and discuss the ethical choices people make nutritionally, especially when considering animal and environmental welfare.

Some of the authors' recommendations are surprising, such as when they cast doubt on the growing movement to buy local, which can be harmful on a social level (this would mean we should care for nearby farmers more than those around the world) and on an environmental one (growing and distributing local food can do more harm than shipping food en masse around the world).

Whether or not you subscribe, it's an eye-opener of a book. For me though, the gold standard on the subject is Fresh Choices, which is primarily a cookbook but more importantly a guide to organic eating, especially when you can't buy organic. It's the only cookbook I've read cover to cover, and for good measure I've read much of it more than once.

Search Insider: Researching the Search Process

I've discovered something much harder than writing about other companies: writing about my own. Of course, this week's column isn't entirely about 360i, but our research is featured prominently.

We'll explore two other studies in a bit more detail; on the first one, for full disclosure, I served as one of its authors. This month, 360i and SearchIgnite released a white paper, "Giving Clicks Credit Where They're Due: What You Need to Know When Allocating Your Search Budget." This report examined searchers who clicked on paid search ads and studied the factors that led to whether they completed a transaction with that marketer. On average, searchers who converted clicked an average of 1.5 of a given marketer's ads, and those who didn't convert clicked 1.3 ads on average. Consumers who make a purchase are more active in the search process.

If the column excites you, you can download the white paper here. It's 12 pages, fluff-free, and free of charge. Let me know how it strikes you.

Moses x2

In the past couple days, I've seen Moses surface in two unexpected ways:

1) AskMoses.com, the live-chat Q&A site to get instant answers to all things Jewish, just launched an SMS service.

2) On YouTube, a video mashup of The Ten Commandments with a high school movie theme. Good, wacky fun, and it also explains why Samuel L. Jackson made a cameo in my dream last night.

New on the Blogroll: Joe Marconi

The first I knew of Joe's writing was his book Cause Marketing, which led to my interviewing him for eMarketer.

Now Joe's blogging, long-form style, about three topics near and dear to more than a few readers: Sex, Lies, & Baby Boomers. Hey, it worked for Steven Soderbergh.

Buzz Monitoring: Settling Bar Bets

I was having an e-mail chat with Mark Naples about baseball (talking about work gets old fast; baseball, meanwhile, presents 2,430 games in the regular season alone). After David Wright's Friday night game-winning hit against the Yankees, I was going to write Mark about how Wright doesn't get as much attention in the NY media market with so many other celebrities in the lineup. Before I wrote him, though, I checked Google Trends. It turns out Wright usually gets the most buzz.

Click on the image. The legend:
Blue: Carlos Delgado
Red: Carlos Beltran
Orange: Pedro Martinez
Green: David Wright

Reviewing it further, Wright's fan base is strictly North American (US / Canada). Delgado hogs the limelight in Puerto Rico, Peru, and Venezuela. Pedro wins in Spain and Mexico. As for Beltran? Even in Portuguese, David Wright's a bigger star.

Two from Kelly

Thanks to Kelly McCoy Williams for a couple of good reads this week.

One is on prejudices about e-mail senders; these prejudices disappear over the phone. The implications are especially pronounced for women and minorities.

E-mail interviewers who thought the sender was Asian considered her social skills to be poor, while those who believed the sender was black considered her social skills to be excellent. In stark contrast, the difference in perceived sociability almost completely disappeared when interviewer and target had talked on the phone.

Read the full article at Christian Science Monitor.

Additionally, Kelly beat my oldest brother in alerting me to the top 25 books of the past quarter-century. I told my brother I was offended by two Don DeLillo's, though my brother was offended that works from 1980 counted as from the past 25 years. That's right, book critics - rules are rules. None of this reading between the lines junk. For more:

• Read Kelly's blog for the Toni Morrison controversy.
• Read The NY Times for the full list, including at least two books not by Philip Roth.
• Read Philip Roth's The Counterlife. It's that good, and as a bonus, it messes with your head. Let me know what you think.

Good News for the Blogosphere

Intuit's Avinash Kaushik is blogging. Read diligently. He discusses web metrics and analytics, but gets to the why behind the what. You might want a pen or digital highlighter handy while you read.