Panama Update from Yahoo!

Interesting interview on Search Insider (Bill Wise, 1/29/07) with Steve Mitgang, Senior VP of Advertiser Products and Platform for Yahoo!

With Panama, the heart of the system is about making the most relevant connection between searchers and advertisers. We're rewarding ads based on relevancy factors, like click-through rate. All things being equal, better ads get better click-through rates; so we're incentivizing advertisers to focus on the quality of the ad message, and not simply on the bid price.

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Pizzas, Pesos and Forex, Oh My!

I live in Texas and watch SiTV, the Spanish language channel. One of their news stories was about a pizza franchise, based out of Dallas called Pizza Patron, who announced this month that it would accept pesos for pizzas. Many accusations are flying about prejudice, patriotism and profiteering. Some people are even claiming that Pizza Patron is actually engaged in currency trading, better know as Forex.

While I do not believe Pizza Patron is engaged in Forex trading, I was interested in currency trading, so I visited Capitalor Forex Broker for more information. Capitalor Forex Broker offers a free demo account for learning how to trade currencies. Just push the Test to Trade button at Capitalor. Please visit Capitalor, sponsor of this post to learn about Forex, try your hand at currency trading with a demo or just jump into trading.

:+: Postie Carnival :+:



The 3rd Postie Carnival is up at Willifordblog.com. Visit it this week if you want to join or just enjoy.


My post for this carnival is up on Texas RV Travel blog. If you want the lowdown on the infant safety seat issue, check it out.


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First Dot Com City in USA

Mark Hughes was vice president of marketing for eBay's Half.com. He literally put Half.com on the map by convincing Halfway, Oregon to rename itself to Half.com, Oregon.

If you have a need for professional speakers, you should visit Buzz Marketing.com, the sponsor of this post. If Mark Hughes could convince a conservative town in Oregon to change their name and become the first dot.com city in the USA, imagine what he could do for marketing in your company.



Blog Your Blessing Sunday : Gandhi

San Marcos wetland scene
It is the duty of every cultured man or woman
to read sympathetically the scriptures of the world.
If we are to respect others' religions as we would
have them respect our own, a friendly study
of the world's religions is a sacred duty.
~Mahatma Gandhi~


The Blue Panther Experience is host for Blog Your Blessings. Click this link, grab the blogroll code, add the code to your blog, leave a comment on Blue Panther Experience and post your blessing. Quick and easy!

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Wall Street Journal Leads Readers by the Nose

As discussed in the December 7th blog post: 2007 May Be the Year of the Scent, we are seeing more scented advertising products. The Wall Street Journal is now offering scented advertisements units and USA Today has announced it will offer scent ads.

Unlike the old-school glossy fragrance inserts that you had to actually open to smell the scent strips, these advertisements are scratch and sniff type advertisements embedded in the newspaper page. Rubbing the advertisement on the page will activate the scent. The technology is in place and new scents will be developed as they are needed. Currently, perfumes and chocolate are available.

According to Smell that? Someone's trying to sell you something (USA Today, 12/29/2006),
the December catalog of Yankee Candle featured 12+ candle fragrance samples like cinnamon and Christmas cookie. Kraft Foods advertised cherry Jell-O and white fudge Chips Ahoy! with scent ads during November in People magaine. Diet Pepsi Jazz promotions have included print ads, coupons and store signs featuring the scent of fruit and French vanilla fragrances. Electronic stores in the Northeast used chocolate scent strips to hype the new LG Electronics mobile phone and music player, Chocolate.
Companies spent $50 million to $80 million on scent-related marketing in 2006, says Harald Vogt, founder of The Scent Marketing Institute consultancy and researcher. That includes spending to fill stores and hotels with customer-pleasing aromas. Vogt predicts spending will pass $500 million by 2016.
What scent would you want to use with your advertisements? I love vanilla, baby powder, lavender and Channel No. 5, but do not think these would be applicable to my advertising.

If you thought, "Chicken Fried Steak" scent, you will love the Southern Fried Carnival
Southern Fried Carnival
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What's Beautiful to You?

Share what is beautiful to you with Peter Belisi, creative director of BeingBelisi blog and Belisi.com. Belisi is a shortened form of bellissimo, the Italian word for beautiful. Belisi is a purveyor of fine Italian silk ties, scarves and handbags.

Belisi launched a public relations campaign just to ask the question:

What's Beautiful to You?

Visit BeingBelisi blog and leave your comment, submit a poem or share your vision that illustrates your idea of what's beautiful. Mr. Peter Belisi will be awarding $100 Belisi.com gift cards to the inviduals who touch his heart.



The match of the design of the man's silk tie to the woman's silk scarf, as pictured above, is a classic look that will wear well on any occasion. Visit the BeingBelisi blog and share What's Beautiful with Belisi, the sponsor of this post.

The Case of the Plummeting Page Rank

Yahoo! Search blog has confirmed that a search engine indexing update started Friday, January 19. Combined with the recent backlink and page rank update by Google, this could spell major trouble for many website and blog owners.

Page ranks are dropping and webmasters are flocking to the unofficial Google SEO blog and Yahoo! Search Blog for answers.

The only answer to be found is to use white-hat SEO techniques (good title, rich content, current sitemap, judicious use of robots.txt file and headings (h1); and, of course, use only pristine inbound links).

Bad news is that paid links, paid or sponsored pages and posts, and SEO games may cause your page rank to drop. Worse, some good pages may just be dropped from indexing completely in the process. Best case scenario is that all your website pages may be classified as supplemental. Other irritating tidbits are that toolbar page rankings are not current, the indexing process is ongoing and that there are no guarantees.

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Blog Your Blessings : Sioux Prayer


Grandfather Great Spirit All Over The World
The Faces Of Living Things Are Alike.
With Tenderness, They Have Come Up Out Of The Ground.
Look Upon Your Children That They May Face The Winds
And Walk The Good Road To The Day Of Quiet.
Grandfather Great Spirit
Fill Us With The Light.
Give Us The Strength To Understand And The Eyes To See.
Teach Us To Walk The Soft Earth As Relatives
To All That Live.

~Sioux Prayer~


The Blue Panther Experience is host for Blog Your Blessings. Click this link, grab the blogroll code, add the code to your blog, leave a comment on Blue Panther Experience and post your blessing. Quick and easy!

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Free Webcast : Multi-Channel Marketing

Free webcast from American Marketing Association:
How Advertisers Can Close the Loop between Brand and Search Marketing

Thursday, February 1, 2007
10am PT/ 11am MT/ 12pm CT/ 1pm ET
Allen Oilvo, Vice President, Global Brand Marketing, Yahoo!
Marla Chupack, Moderator, American Marketing Association

Preregistration is required




NASCAR!

Photos from MediaPost.com
Campaign by Wieden+Kennedy New York


I love dogs. When I saw these pictures from the print advertising campaign for NASCAR, I just had to post them! NASCAR print ads may be viewed in in Sporting News, NASCAR Illustrated, NASCAR Scene, USA Today and Sports Business Journal.

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Pingo - funny name, wonderful calling card

Pingo offers prepaid calling cards with which you may place International calls. If you signup today, you will receive $5 USD in free calling. It is so simple to use Pingo! You purchase a membership with a credit card and Pingo gives you a code to use with their toll-free access number(s).

Pingo will recognize the phone numbers of the phones you use most often, including your cell, home and work phone number, so you do not have to enter your account number and code each time you want to make a call. You may set up your Pingo account to refill your time automatically when the balance reaches $5. Once you are a customer of Pingo, you can access your account billing online.

Pingo has a worldwide network, so you will find that Pingo has some of the cheapest rates around. A good friend of mine moved down under, so I am going to visit Pingo, the sponsor of this post, to check out Australia calling card rates. I wonder if he learned the Australian lingo yet?

Come to the Carnival on Blog Village

Blog Village Family Blog Carnival

Blog Village is having a blog carnival on Friday, January 26, 2007. The theme of the blog carnival is family, so only family-oriented posts will be accepted. The carnival will be hosted on the Blog Village Community News blog.
  • Blog post carnival entries must be from a Blog Village blog or from a blog that links directly to a Blog Village blog.
  • Submit only one entry per blogger.
  • Only English language posts will be accepted.
  • No blog post with title, nor blog with pictures, containing profanity or of a sexual or suggestive nature, will be accepted.
To enter:
  • Write or select a blog post about family.
  • Send the URL and title of that family post to: kilroy60 at gmail dot com
  • Submit your entry by Thursday, January 25 at 11:59 (EST).
  • If you are NOT a member of Blog Village, include the name and URL of the Villager blog to which you are linked. If you are linked to more than one, select only one.
Blog carnivals are a great way to find new friends, discover new blogs and increase traffic to your site. Mostly, blog carnivals are just big fun! Share the news with your friends and family. If nothing else, come to the carnival on January 26 on the Blog Village Community News blog.

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Wirefly Announces Top 10 Cell Phones of 2006

I had just finished with the post below, Mobile Marketing and Advertising, when I saw this press release called Wirefly Announces the Ten Most Popular Cell Phones of 2006. Out of the top 10 cell phones of 2006, nine were camera phones, three were RAZRs, five were made by Motorola, one was a video phone by Song Ericsson, and one was the phone that I use, the Samsung T309.

I was amazed by the multimedia capabilities of some of the telephones, specifically the Sony Ericsson z525a, billed as a video phone. It is so much more than that. the Sony Ericsson can be used as a modem with additional software, and it includes a 4x digital zoom camera, 3GPPP streaming multimedia support, an MP3 player, Bluetooth wireless technology, and a camcorder that records up to 60 seconds in MPEG4 format.

I thought my Samsung T309 was loaded with features: I have a speakerphone; wireless capabities that allow me to access the Internet or my e-mail; send voice and text messages; and add photographs to any message. Of course, I can also personalize ringtones and wallpapers.

Although not in the top 10, 2006 saw the introduction of several smartphones, mobile PDAs and Pocket PCs. Also increasing was market share for cell phones for children, by Disney, of course. The addition of GPS capabilities was mandated by 911 legislation, but will be extremely useful to parents and travelers who want to know exactly where they are or a loved one is located.

I would say I do not know what is next, but I think I know. Soon we will have one device for all modes of communication and entertainment. Its a brave new world in 2007. To read more, please visit Wirefly.com, the sponsor of this post.

Mobile Marketing and Advertising

A new report, Mobile Marketing and Advertising, was released January 9, 2007. eMarketer predicts that the global market for mobile marketing and advertising will grow from $1.5 billion in 2006 to $13.9 billion in 2011.

During 2007, look for:
cross-media plays where the direct response capabilities of handsets provide the punch line to a rich media setup in other media such as television, radio or print.
For example, publishers in Japan embed quick response codes in the print media to allow immediate interaction between the mobile user and the content. These response codes enable publishers and advertisers to track the mobile user and their interests through the mobile channel. The top categories currently driven through mobile marketing include branding, information requests, and actual purchase.

There must be some unique relationships forged between brands, marketers, ad agencies and mobile carriers to take advantage of the most prevalent interactive platform in the world. Problems include consumer reluctance to accept advertising, even if it means free mobile content or expanded services; revenue sharing, consumer privacy and the need for carriers to provide statistical data; the general perception of consumers and marketers that the mobile platform is a premium channel for communication only.

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Money4Blogs is the real thing

I discovered Money4Blogs about a month ago. I submitted my three blogs and was contacted within a matter of days by email.

Money4Blogs made me an offer for text link(s) on three of my blogs for one year. The size of the offer depends upon the popularity, page rank and age of the blogs. I accepted the offer and sent them my PayPal address. Money4Blogs supplied me with the code for the links; I pasted the link into my blogs, sent an email saying I the links were live; I was paid with 24 hours by PayPal. Last week, I went back to Money4Blogs and submitted my blogs again. I was contacted and paid the same amount to post another textlink.

I just wanted you to know that Money4Blogs is a paying site. All of the links and related sites are reputable finance webpages, with no illegal or obscene content.

All you need is your blog URLs, your email address and your blog page rank. Go here and submit your blogs and see what happens. It was a pleasure doing business with a company that does what they claim in an understated and professional manner.

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iPhone, Anyone?

iPhone by AppleiPhone Introduced by Apple, Inc.

iPhone, one small and lightweight handheld device, combines mobile phone, widescreen iPod, and Internet communication with desktop-class email, web browser, maps, and search! iPhone introduces new user interface with touch controls and software that allows you to control everything with just your fingers. It will not be available until later in 2007.

This is almost everything I want in a handheld. Almost... I am holding out for the virtual housekeeper, aromatheraphy module, GPS and HDTV! Oh, and the USB direct brain connection. LOL

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Blog Your Blessing Sunday : Healing

Nueces Bay
O God my God! I beg of Thee by the ocean of Thy healing, and by the splendors of the Daystar of Thy grace, and by Thy Name through which Thou didst subdue Thy servants, and by the pervasive power of Thy most exalted Word and the potency of Thy most august Pen, and by Thy mercy that hath preceded the creation of all who are in heaven and on earth, to purge me with the waters of Thy bounty from every affliction and disorder, and from all weakness and feebleness.

Thou seest, O my Lord, Thy suppliant waiting at the door of Thy bounty, and him who hath set his hopes on Thee clinging to the cord of Thy generosity. Deny him not, I beseech Thee, the things he seeketh from the ocean of Thy grace and the Daystar of Thy loving-kindness.

Powerful art Thou to do what pleaseth Thee. There is none other God save Thee, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous.

Bahá'u'lláh


The Blue Panther Experience is host for Blog Your Blessings. Click this link, grab the blogroll code, add the code to your blog, leave a comment on Blue Panther Experience and post your blessing. Quick and easy!


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Online Video Tags and Hotspots

Producers of online video are now able to tag and link to specific video elements such as character, genre or quote. Online video may now be segmented into its component parts and hotspotted.

According to David Berkowitz (of 360i) for MediaPost Search Insider.
. . . expect hotspotting to become a household word. Through this technology, producers can isolate characters, sets, products, and other elements within the video and not just tag them but link them.
Video hot spotting is similar to image mapping, where you have a clickable area (hotspot) on a image, such as a map, that links to more information.

Video will become riddled with links and supported by advertising. Is it free yet?


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Protect Your Data from Catastrophic Failure

I remember a Mac computer that displayed nothing but a question mark in the middle of the screen when I turned it on, and I had an entire conference in that computer! Database, handouts, agendas, speaker bios, press release, you name it! While I had saved some of the information on floppy disks, by no means did I have the complete data to restore. Do not let this happen to you! FileBanc will store your data. Quickly, securely, and easily catastrophe-proof your life or business.

This post is sponsored by FileBanc, your friendly backup site on the Internet.

American Marketing Association Webcast

Free Webcast : Innovative Multi-Channel Marketing Webcast

Learn how Weingarten Realty Investors, one of the largest real estate owners and developers in the U.S., is streamlining the creation and delivery of multi-channel marketing to grow their business, and deliver a superior experience to thousands of agents, brokers, partners, and customers.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007
10am PT/ 11am MT/ 12pm CT/ 1pm ET
Preregistration required

Presenters:
Eugene Lax, Sr. Project Manager, Weingarten Realty Investors
Eben Miller, Dir of Product Marketing, Interwoven
Greg Dawson, Principal, eSiteful
Anna Carbonara, Moderator, American Marketing Association

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Small business blog provides information and services

Are you a home-based business owner? Have you ever considered opening a service or retail business? IncParadise.com has a new blog for small business owners. Small business blog has categorized resources on topics of great interest to small- to medium-sized businesses.

Small Business blog can help with incorporation in Nevada and Delaware, two states that cultivate a very favorable business climate for small business owners. To reduce the personal liability of operating as a sole proprietor, some business owners choose to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or partnership, This is pretty time-consuming and expensive. Discover the ramifications of tax law; find resources for payroll processing and FICA reporting; contract out your inventory and accounting functions.

If you need small business help, visit Small business blog, sponsor of this blog post.

Advergames Big Success for Burger King

Burger King SOLD 2.5 million copies of three advergames produced for Microsoft Xbox during their first five weeks in Burger King restaurants.

Imagine how many they would have sold if they left the King out. LOL.

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Social Search Engines

Social Search Engines are an interesting phenomena. One of the originals, StumbleUpon, uses simple thumbs up/thumbs down user ratings to winnow your way to the web site on which friends and other "Stumblers" have commented.

Here are some newer social search engines:
  • Gravee combines the results of many search engines for the best of all search algorithms in a single set of results and applies TagScore to further refines the results
  • Jookster provides one central location where photos, video and bookmarks from social networking sites like YouTube and del.icio.us may be searched, saved and shared
  • Otavo describes itself as a community of users and staff members who participate in your quest to find answers quicker
  • Wikiasari - open source search engine that could be a major contender in social search
  • Yoono - serves up sites, news and people categorized by people who share your interests
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Blog Your Blessing Sunday

dividing line
Though our mouths were full of song as the sea, and our tongues
of exultation as the multitude of its waves,
and our lips of praise as the wide-extended firmament;
though our eyes shone with light like the sun and the moon,
and our hands were spread forth like the eagles of heaven,
and our feet were swift as hinds,
we should still be unable to thank thee and bless thy name,
O Lord our God and God of our fathers,
for one thousandth or one ten thousandth part of the bounties which
thou has bestowed upon our fathers and upon us.

~from the Hebrew Prayer Book~

The Blue Panther Experience is host for Blog Your Blessings. Click this link, grab the blogroll code, add the code to your blog, leave a comment on Blue Panther Experience and post your blessing. Quick and easy!

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Do You Need a Job in Advertising?


Adrants offers Adrants Portfolios, a service for creatives to exhibit their portfolios and get them seen by hiring companies and for companies in search of creative talent to easily search a database of creative portfolios and find the right creative for the job. Upload your portfolio and get it seen. Search for the best creatives in the business. Check it out here.

Want a job in advertising? Check out Adrants JobWink

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Who Won Best Flog of 2006?

The Consumerist hosted a survey to determine the best fake marketing blog (flog) for 2006.

The Contestants!

  • McDonald's ~ 4Railroads and Mcdmillionwinner flogs

  • Wal-mart ~ Walmarting Across America flog

  • Sony ~ All I Want For Xmas Is A PSP flog





Click the Gold-Plated Turd Award to find the LOSER company that won the best flog of 2006. May all marketers, public relations firms and advertising companies have learned to leave the flogs alone.

For more information on flogs, please visit previous these posts:
Flogging and the Federal Trade Commission
Anothr Flog Brought to You by Zipatoni

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Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)

LSI can be used to answer specific information requests and to monitor new information for user interests. LSI can retrieve relevant information that does not contain query words, so it finds more relevant information than other search engine methods.

LSI is the only known method for cross-language retrieval that does not require translation of user queries or information, so queries in one language can effectively retrieve information in the same or different languages.

Google currently uses this algorithm to return search results. Is this method better than keyword matching?

Let me know your thoughts on this . . .

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