March 10, 2010
How important is your domain name to you brand? Most online businesses would probably consider it to be quite important, and with good reason. Sometimes before searching, customers may simply opt to go to the "yourbrandhere.com" URL simply because it makes sense. Now, sometimes that URL is already taken, and for start-ups, that's something to consider in itself. As Monte Cahn, Founder and President of Moniker mentioned in a recent interview with WebProNews, it's a good idea to make sure the domain name is available when coming up with a name for your brand, or at least make sure that you are able to acquire it. Products have their own brands, and this way of thinking can also be applied to them in many cases. Cahn notes that even the big companies make mistakes in this area. For example, you would expect Apple to own iPad.com, considering the huge announcement about the device the company made this year, but someone else has that domain.
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At the first f8 conference, Facebook Platform was launched. Facebook Connect was announced the second time around. And now, as f8 2010 draws near, a report's indicated that Facebook will finally unveil a feature having to do with users' physical locations. Consider the difference someone's location can make. Here's one basic example: Many people would pass over the status update "Kate is warm," but something like "Kate is warm - Miami, Florida" might attract all sorts of attention from Kate's friends (assuming Kate's not a Miami native). Plus it could mean a different set of ads would get shown. It's significant, then, that Nick Bilton reported this afternoon, "Facebook plans to take the wraps off a new location-based feature in late April at f8, the company's yearly developer conference, according to several people briefed on the project." Bilton also wrote, "The new location feature will have two aspects, according to the people familiar with Facebook's plans. One will be a service offered directly by Facebook that will allow users to share their location information with friends. . . . The other will be a set of software tools, known as A.P.I.'s, that outside developers can use to offer their own location-based services to Facebook users." As for how Facebook intends to deal with privacy issues, this should be an opt-in feature, effectively cutting off the sorts of protests with which some other changes and Google Buzz were greeted. Now we just have to wait and see if Facebook actually follows through on these rumors.
Update: After some delay, Microsoft is reportedly now rolling out the new MSN home page design over the next couple weeks. Original Article: MSN.com gets about 85 million unique monthly visitors in the US alone, according to Compete. That's significantly more than AOL.com. So now that Microsoft has unveiled a redesign to it, it stands to reason that a lot of people are going to be affected by it. Microsoft calls the new design MSN's most significant home page redesign in over a decade. "Now is the time to clean up the mess on the Web — people need less clutter and less hassle to find what matters most to them," said Erik Jorgensen, corporate vice president, Microsoft. "Microsoft is uniquely invested in search, media experiences and technical innovation. Combining these assets to deliver our new MSN home page is a tremendous win for customers and advertisers." What do you think of the new design? Share your opinions here. The new design pays significant focus to local, Bing, social networks, and news. Coinciding with the announcement of the redesign was the unveiling of MSN Local Edition. This is a section of MSN that gives you local news, weather, sports, movies and events, restaurants, gas, traffic, a directory, lottery numbers, etc.
The Bing integration with the new MSN is deeper. It's now used as the core search technology throughout the home page in areas like shopping, travel, and local. It is also used as a way to highlight hot topics, trends, and people. There is a clean integration of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as Microsoft's own Windows Live "What's New," which aggregates up to 50 web activities from various places like Yelp, Flickr, Pandora, etc.
"Customers told us they want the latest information from their favorite sources, their friends and the breadth of the Web — and the new MSN home page delivers via a fresh new look and new features," Jorgensen said. "Today is an important transformation for MSN, and it’s just the beginning." There is also an emphasis on de-cluttering the home page. Microsoft says there are 50% fewer links than on the previous version. Here's what the whole thing looks like: The design is not live on a wide scale yet. It will be rolling out gradually over the coming weeks. It is, however available as a preview here. On a related note, Microsoft is finally launching MSN Music this week. The launch has been postponed since July.
Have You Read This?
> MySpace, MSN Now Said To Be In Talks
> Microsoft Partners With Advance Internet On Local Ad Deal
> Bing Gets More Mobile Features in The US
March 9, 2010
The Wall Street Journal has the Blogosphere abuzz with rumors of Google testing a new set-top box with Dish Network, which would allow people to search television and online video content like YouTube. Google has given the usual "we don't comment on rumor or speculation" statement on the subject. According to the WSJ, only a small number of Google employees and their families are testing the box, which runs on Google software (Android is implied), and lets users create personalized lineups of shows. The testing has reportedly been going on since last year. Aside from these things, the details are sketchy at best, which can only mean one thing: let the wild speculation commence. Assuming that this service ever comes to fruition, it could open up a lot of new opportunities for Google to dominate or at least heavily compete in areas in which it isn't dominating already. Rather than doing too much speculation myself, allow me to just list some questions and open this up for discussion:
- What if Google gets exclusive deals with Dish Network as well as other major satellite and cable providers? Google TV Ads already has deals in place to provide ads on close to a hundred cable networks. - What if Google makes more deals to boost its movie rental selection on YouTube? How big of a player would that make YouTube in the movie rental space? This will be something to keep an eye on with or without this box as Internet-ready TVs permeate the mainstream. - Will Yahoo and Bing be looking at opportunities like the Google/Dish Network box? Are they already? - What would widespread integration of web search and television mean for TV advertising?
In the not-too-distant future, we may start to really see TV advertising getting more targeted, which has long been the medium's biggest downfall. People often record shows simply so they don't have to watch the commercials. What if the ads were targeted at the individuals watching the TV? What if they were relevant? Search advertising paved the way for this kind of relevancy, and may just be a key to the future of TV advertising in a world where viewers want their programming on demand.
There I go off on that speculation. This all sounds good in theory, but a lot of puzzle pieces have to fall in place, and a lot of stars have to align for this to become a reality. Deals must be made, and money must be spent. That's not to say the concept is far-fetched. Consider that advertisers are finding online to be a better option than even the super bowl in some cases. This past Super Bowl, Pepsi skipped a TV spot for the first time in 23 years. TV is going to have to adapt. Talk to ArisYulianta and Friends... what you think.
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