Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

The Bush and 'The Google'

Few stories write their own columns better than this one. The president of the United States was interviewed about his search habits, and he couldn't even get the search engine's name right.

Besides any political jabs, which were so easy I generally steered clear of them, it's a fascinating case study in what happens when a chief of state talks about engaging the activities of the common people.  Chief executives of any sort are pretty far removed from the front lines, and this is a great example.

While the interview might be mortifying for some, it's almost cute and endearing. One other point not included here, inspired by some comments on MediaPost's blog -- the President has limitless technological resources for satellite imagery, and he's using Google Earth. Google 1, CIA 0.

WATCHING THE CLIPS OF GEORGE W. Bush's CNBC interview that were posted on YouTube, I kept trying to think about what it all meant. After all, this is our nation's president, our Commander in Chief, the so-called leader of the free world. Anything he says about the economy, international relations, and social issues can potentially impact billions of people. So what can we learn from President George W. Bush when he talked about "the Google" with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo last Monday?

Bartiromo asked the President, "I'm curious, have you ever Googled anybody? Do you use Google?"

Let's parse his response, as posted in the transcript on MSNBC, and see what this could mean for the future of search, the Internet, and the free world.

Read the rest of the column in the extended entry, or on the MediaPost blog, where you'll find a bunch of comments.

Coke, Mentos, Google, and TypePad

               
 

I didn't realize you can post Google Video directly to TypePad (and other blog publishing tools). This originally comes from Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim (I had to go back and edit the link as HTML since there's no HTML editing in the Google Video blog posting app). Below's text comes right from Google Video. This video is incredibly cool - worth the full view, and check out the ad after the video seems to end. * * * The guys from EepyBird are back, with 251 bottles of Diet Coke and over 1,500 Mentos mints.  In Experiment #137, they did a mint-powered version of the Bellagio fountains.  This time, it's one giant Coke & Mentos chain reaction that has to be seen to be believed. Keywords:  eepybird eepy bird mentos coke diet coke mentos experiment fountain soda science geyser experiments fountains geysers

Yahoo 360's GnomeWatch

During "The Amazing Race" last night, there was a commercial from Travelocity about the disappearance of its gnome mascot. The site ended with a plug for GnomeWatch.com, which I had to visit. At first, the site didn't look like much, and then I realized it was a profile page on Yahoo 360, the social network that hasn't seemed to make any waves just yet.

I think Yahoo's a bigger beneficiary than Travelocity, as Travelocity could have had a more souped up, slickly designed page if it went some other route, and I haven't heard a thing about Y360 in some time. At least it's a sign that Yahoo is trying to better monetize its numerous assets.

One strange discovery: a search for "gnomewatch" on Yahoo doesn't bring up the site anywhere in the first page of its paid or natural results. The same applies for "gnome watch." Meanwhile, the Y360 page comes up #3 in Google for "gnomewatch" (nowhere in the first couple pages for "gnome watch").

Even if the campaign is a good sign for Yahoo, it still needs to help its clients use all of its assets together.

This Week's Non-Sponsor

In that this blog doesn't take real sponsorships, I figured I'd try an experiment where every week, one site that is making the web and world a better place will reside atop the blog free of charge. To nominate a site for another week's non-sponsor, contact me.

This week's non-sponsor is Kiva, the site for "loans that change lives." Kiva writes, "Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world, empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty." You can try it out with just a $25 loan and then build your portfolio from there. For more on microloans, read the recent New Yorker article on the different philosophies of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Grameen Bank founder and now Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, and others.

Social Media Architecture

At a meeting of New York's chapter of the Social Media Club last night, a debate took place revolving around how to define social media. Before I get into the substance of the discussion , I wanted to toy with a metaphor I was playing with and wanted to test out here. I call the concept Social Media Architecture.

Here's the gist of how this works:

If you build a house for yourself, can that be considered 'social architecture'? No.

What if other people gather outside the house and talk about it? Still, no, there's nothing social about it, even if others happen to be discussing it. This is essentially the broadcast model. There's a builder, and then there's everyone else who just stands outside and discusses it. It doesn't matter if the house is so amazing that it brings a mass of people together to gawk at it. The architecture itself isn't social.

What if you get together with a bunch of other people and build the house, and then everyone else stands outside? It's still not social.

What if you design the house and order masses of people to build it according to your specifications? The image of the Hebrews building the Egyptian pyramids comes to mind. That doesn't count as social though. Additionally, hiring an architect to build the structure doesn't matter any.

What if you built a house and someone comes along and sprays it with graffiti? A consumer took ownership of the structure, but it's illegal. This would be like a case of plagiarism or theft of intellectual property, or hacking.

Now, what if you built a house, and as you were building it, you invited all the people stopping by to vote on what color each wall is painted, or which room becomes the master bedroom, or what furniture to put in each room? This is a sort of 101 version of social media, much like "American Idol." It's interactive in terms of giving consumers a stake in the content, but it still isn't really social media.

What if you built a house where everyone could come and construct their own rooms and additions? That's another step in the right direction in terms of giving consumers control, but it's not yet social media. That model is more like Geocities or Blogger, where everyone can come and put up their own rooms, but it's still not social.

What if you built a house where everyone could come and construct their own rooms, and then reach out to other builders to agree to directly link rooms to each other? Everyone, even those who choose not to build rooms themselves, could freely enter everyone else's room and offer their comments on it. Everyone would be identifiable in some way, even if it's by a handle that preserves their anonyminity. This is social media. It's the social media architecture behind MySpace, YouTube, Second Life, and any of the true social media phenomena.

Googling Elections

I try to refrain from posting articles that quote me so I can keep the head swelling down a bit, but I'll make an exception here for 3 reasons:

1) It's a good article about Google's role in influencing public opinion.
2) I didn't just give the reporter a quote; I gave him the subheader for the article.
3) Sometimes my head's allowed to swell (even Cara's encouraging it this time, and she's the first to keep me in check).

From ABCNews.com:

Google Bombing Politicians

Theoretically, Google Could Determine Who Controls Congress

BY NEAL KARLINSKY

Oct. 26, 2006 — For all of Google's power and popularity, here's an unexpected question:

Could Google tell people how to vote in the upcoming election?

"Google could theoretically impact an election," said David Berkowitz, at the search engine marketing firm 360i. "Presumably, Google could have a role in who controls Congress."

Here's how. A liberal activist with the group blog "MyDD.com" is directing his followers to "Google Bomb" 50 Republican candidates in the hopes of swaying votes. For example, if a voter is interested in finding out more information about Rep. John Hostettler, an Indiana Republican, the first thing to come up on a search of his name, according to this strategy, would be an article with the headline "Congressman cited with gun at airport."

There's more on ABCNews.com.

Flying the Co-op

There's been more buzz about Google Co-op since it added the "Build Your Own Search Engine" feature this week. I've been watching Co-op for awhile, and it's one of those services that could have a major impact on how people search and search engine optimization, but hardly anyone is going to use it. This applies to the additions to Co-op as well. 

Co-op isn't the first of its kind. For another example, try the Rollyo search box on the right-hand column of this blog. There, you can search this site, my customized search engine, or the web. The main reason I like Rollyo is that it offered the best functionality to search my own site of any engine I've tried; the custom search engine was just for kicks, something I've never personally used.

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, founder of Montreal-based search company Mojo Supreme (which runs Metamojo.com), sent me a link to his lengthy column on Co-op and the value. Unlike the Second Life blogger yesterday, Ash doesn't rip me to shreds when he quotes me. Granted, my quote's a small part of his detailed analysis of Co-op and how it compares to his own Mojo. Worth a read.

Second Life Optimization

In this week's Search Insider, I took a stab at considering how the laws of search engine optimization apply to Second Life. You can find the article here.

I also just read a response to my piece that's even longer than my article. Second Lifers take their worlds seriously and are wary of big brand involvement.

Googling Elections

I haven't had a chance to try this yet, but Google just release a Google Earth plugin for US election info. From their release:

Today Google Earth celebrates the election season with the launch of the 2006 Google Earth Election Guide.

Conceived by Google Earth engineers who found it difficult to find aggregated election information online about races country-wide, the 2006 Google Earth Election Guide serves as an easily accessible resource for users to find information about candidates, voter registration, and campaign financing for the November 7th elections.

The 2006 Google Earth Election Guide includes clickable place marks for all 435 Congressional districts.

I'd rather see this as a mashup for Google Maps than Google Earth, since the former's much quicker to load and access, but this is still a great way to plot useful information and allow John Q. to get more involved with this democracy stuff we hear so much about.

eComXpo This Week

This Wednesday at 4pm EST, I have the pleasure of joining moderator Sara Holoubek and an all-star cast for a presentation for eComXpo. Register here for free. Our session's on the next frontiers of search engine optimization (SEO).