Advertisers agencies are looking at Google as a 200-pound gorrilla, and a smelly one at that. A recent study of national advertisers reveals a serious customer service problem. CNN reports that Google is pissing off its regular customers, the ad agencies (and no, searchers are not Google customers; they are part of the Google product), by trying to cut them out of the process.
Another advertising taboo that [SEMPO president Dana] Todd says Google has broken: the company has gone around the agencies it deals with and tried to sign deals directly with Fortune 1000 advertisers. That’s alienated media buyers and, at the same time, fueled the perception that Google is giving deep-pocketed advertisers special treatment, to the detriment of smaller advertisers.
Google isn’t the only one that’s apparently breached ad industry etiquette. Todd says Yahoo! once tried a similar end-run around agencies, but has since stopped the practice.
Those sales guys at Google are quite aggresive. Lets hope they know not to cross a line. As the article explains, AOL went too far in its advertising practices during the boom, and suffered badly when the bust came.
May 4th, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Advertising, General |
no comments
Dow Jones reports that AOL sold yesterday 5.1 million Google shares, getting about $940 million back from shares they paid about $15 million for 12 months ago.
In May 2004, AOL exercised a warrant for about $22 million and received about 7.4 million shares of Series D preferred stock. Before the close of Google’s initial public offering in August 2004, those shares converted into shares of Google’s Class B common stock.
As part of the offering, AOL converted about 2.4 million of those shares into Class A common stock, which it then sold in the offering for $195 million, the filing said. After underwriter discounts and commissions, Time Warner recorded a gain of $188 million.
So, they paid $22 million a year ago, got $188 million three months later and another $940 million nine months after that. Amazing deal. What did Time Warner do to get such a sizable stake?
(via John Battelle)
May 4th, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Stock Market, AOL, General |
3 comments
A million things are running through my head about Google Web Accelerator. But first, the world exclusive first GWA joke:
Do you think this was the only way they could speed up Blogger?
Anyway, this raises a lot of questions. If this program becomes very popular, Google will be running most of the world’s website traffic, much like Bloglines now runs a huge percentage of the RSS traffic. Will some of these features make their way into Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7? Is it okay that, 15 minutes in, Google now knows my password?
One thing I’m thinking of is that this just doesn’t “feel” very Google. It almost seems beneath them. Even if it is a very effective product, its just a little gadget. I thought Google was supposed to be competing with Microsoft? Instead of a Google browser (which I feel is a stupid idea anyways), Google best efforts are trying to replace Windows’ find feature and saving you a few seconds here or there. Meanwhile Microsoft is building Longhorn, IE7, Xbox 2, a competitor to the PDF format, and future versions of Office, antivirus, antispyware and other programs. Is Google playing to beat Microsoft, or are they just playing with (useful) toys? I like this product, but I expect to find it at some site called “Mike’s Kewl Downloads”, not Google.com.
I don’t know exactly what I’m complaining about. Its a nice program. I guess I was hoping for a little more ambition.
Hey, readers! Give me your thoughts.
UPDATE: The privacy implications are staggering. Google can now know absolutely everything. If they thought Gmail created a mess when the Gmail ad thing went down, its going to look like a stubbed toe next to this. The hell will rain down on Google over the following weeks, you better believe it.
May 4th, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Tools, General |
12 comments
Google has just released this product from Labs: The Google Web Accelerator (beta), which is designed to speed up your Internet Explorer browsing experience. A full review requires some lengthy experience with it, but here are the details:
Google Web Accelerator is an application that uses the power of Google’s global computer network to make web pages load faster. Google Web Accelerator is easy to use; all you have to do is download and install it, and from then on many web pages will automatically load faster than before.
Web Accelerator works by requesting web pages from a Google cache (not the regular web search cache, but one dedicated to GWA) and by prefetching pages. It watches your mouse movements to actually download pages before you click on the link, and only downloads the updates to pages, instead of the whole page. It also uses multiple pipes to reduce delays.
GWA is not recommended for dial-up, being made to speed up faster connections. It only speeds up web pages, not downloads or secure (https://) pages. However, everything you type in unencrypted pages does get sent to Google. If you are paranoid, disable GWA before entering your credit card number in anything without a security certificate.
Requirements:
To use Google Web Accelerator, your computer must have a Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP 3+ operating system. Google Web Accelerator works for the Internet Explorer 5.5+ or Firefox 1.0+ browsers.
Other Windows browsers can use it, but need to be configured to run all HTTP connections through a 127.0.0.1:9100 proxy.
Webmasters should get used to seeing an X-moz: prefetch header in their site statistics. You can configure your pages to automatically prefetch certain links by adding this:
link rel="prefetch" href="http://url/to/get/" /link
nor you want to overload your users’ connections with too large a download, and if a large number of links on a page are marked for prefetching, overall performance may diminish. So you should only specify prefetching for the links your users are most likely to click on.Google also assures that (somehow) GWA doesn’t prefetch ad clicks.
GWA sits in both your system tray and your toolbar. There are three status icons:
- Running
- Off for this site
- Off entirely
The speedometer indicates your download speed.
The preferences let you turn on double-underlined links for prefetched pages, as well as block certain sites from prefetching. You can also go to a “races” page that gives stats on how much time you’ve saved:
| Load Time for 31 Pages |
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| Without Google Web Accelerator: |
11.0 seconds |
|
| With Google Web Accelerator: |
8.7 seconds |
|
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| Total Time Saved: |
2.3 seconds |
|
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May 4th, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Tools, General |
2 comments
AskJeeves last month began to implement a program to reduce the number of ads atop search results by 31%, a move intended to boost customer satisfaction and the bottom line. From Search Engine Watch
Berkowitz said that, in a bid to improve the user experience with the search engine, the company began to implement a program in early April to reduce by 31% the number of ads it shows at the top of its results pages. The company’s tests show that a smaller number of ads boosts the frequency with which people use the site and aids user retention. As such, Jeeves expects the change to help lift query volumes and ad revenue later in the year.
The issue at hand is that statistics show that engines like Jeeves, with large numbers of ads but low customer satisfaction, enjoy higher ad clicks than friendlier sites like Google. However, those ad clicks are offset by their lower traffic, caused by those very same ads. The research presented back at SES New York, if accurate, seemed to indicate that Jeeves would have higher click-through rates, but lower satisfaction, resulting in lower revenues. Jeeves, by dropping the number of ads by a third, is jeapordizing its ad clicks, but at a gain of satisfaction. The goal is to find that sweet spot where ad clicks are still high, but traffic is also. We’ll see if Jeeves can pull it off.
May 4th, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Jeeves, Advertising, General |
one comment
A conservative group is accusing Google of having a liberal political bias after it rejected an anti-Democrat ad that was identical to an anti-Republican one they had already accepted.
William Greene, president of RightMarch.com, says that after seeing several ads attacking Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, he submitted a counter-ad attacking his Democratic counterpart, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. What was unique is that he says all he did was take the anti-DeLay ad and change the name to Pelosi’s, as well as changing the link to his site. Google rejected his ad, while keeping the other ad with the same text, which he charges was done intentionally due to a liberal bias on Google’s part.
RightMarch has screenshots of the incident. In the first one, you see the original anti-DeLay ad in the Google results for Tom Delay:
The Truth about Tom DeLay
Learn about DeLay’s many scandals
and help us clean up the House!
dccc.org
The second screenshot shows AdWords rejecting the anti-Pelosi ad:
Truth about Nancy Pelosi
Learn about Pelosi’s many scandals
and help us clean up the House!
RightMarch.com
It is worth noting that the results for Tom DeLay no longer contain the specific anti-DeLay ad, but some others that are less specifically anti-DeLay:
Help Us Defeat DeLay
Give to DeLay's oldest foe.
Help Texas Democrats beat DeLay!
www.txdemocrats.org
Don't delay Oust DeLay
Save Democracy Speak Out
Original T-Shirts Wild Funny
www.1stamendhab.com
The top ad there is currently owned by RightMarch, with a new twist:
Support Tom DeLay
Stop the vast left-wing conspiracy
Fight Liberal personal attacks.
RightMarch.com
So, was this intentional? Google says that this is simply a case of them catching one ad but not the other, and that it has removed both ads. Google probably should stay out of regulating political speech in its ad network, since this can only backfire against them.
Some quotes from the CNSNews article:
“At this time, Google policy does not permit ad text that advocates against an individual, group or organization,” Google wrote Greene on the administration page of his ad account. “As noted in our advertising terms and conditions, we reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our site.”
“Well, that’s great! They’re a private organization, they can certainly make that decision” Greene said. “But then we looked, and all the anti-DeLay ads were still up, including the one we had copied word-for-word except that we changed the name.”
Asked about the nearly identical ads, Mayzel said, “Both ads were taken down. Any assertion to the contrary is false.”
Other anti-DeLay advertisements that were accepted by Google including, “Help Us Defeat DeLay,” “Don’t delay, Oust DeLay,” “Tom DeLay’s Rear End” and “tom delay [sic] a republican [sic] showing his true colors,” among several others. Only two ads that could be construed as not negative toward DeLay were displayed: One for a “Great Conservative Book - Eyes Wide Open: What Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About America!” and another exhorting viewers to, “Pray for Tom DeLay.”
“If you’ve got a written policy, all we’re asking is that you apply it even-handedly or don’t have the policy,” Greene concluded.
May 4th, 2005
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
AdWords, Advertising, General |
one comment
