This Week’s SEM News – Chill People!

One of the great things about American innovation is that we are relentless. Americans are pitbulls. I don’t know how we do it. But for some reason we just constantly work, innovate and drive forward.

But I sometimes think this endless ambition manifests itself into rather ridiculous ends.

You’ll find below a survey that says, 60% Of You Don’t Like Google Instant. I am probably in that camp. The problem is that the Instant results aren’t relevant. And relevance is the key to a good search engine. It reminds me of that game show, “Name That Tune.” It was always exciting when someone said, “I can name that tune in one note!” But it wasn’t because they somehow magically knew the song. They were given clues.

Google Instant is like “Name That Tune” except with no clues other than what other people were interested in searching for.

This is a product of just trying too hard. It’s cool they are trying. And actually, I’ll take Google Instant any day over the lack of innovation at a place like Yahoo.

And now I see there are Bing Rewards. This is an idea that Microsoft just can’t let go. But this time might be the worst of all times. The rewards are terrible and the technical requirements to get involved are too steep. I’m glad they are trying stuff. But this is just an idea that doesn’t seem to catch on.

People don’t seem to want to be rewarded for searching, or sharing their opinions. It’s odd because we like credit card rewards. But maybe that’s because money is changing hands anyway.

Google never seems to give money or prizes away. They are just always innovating. That appears to be the recipe for success. But apparently that’s not evident to the likes of Yahoo and Bing.

I mean, why doesn’t Microsoft make Office an online app?

Why didn’t Flickr come out with a photo editing tool?

How did Skype become the default IM tool and not Windows Live Messenger?

And Google could really keep working on their social media platform, orkut. And how about continuing to promote Sidewiki? That’s a good idea. How could Google get more people to use its toolbar? Why isn’t that automatically installed on Chrome?

It just sometimes feels like these people are all in a frenzy. Maybe they need to go on a retreat and chill for a while. They are all working like hell. But I’m not sure its always the most strategic moves.

Here are the rest of the headlines I thought were interesting:

West Coast More Media Savvy Than East Coast

San Francisco came out on top with the tech-minded folks in San Jose, California running a close second. Los Angeles (9) and Seattle (6) also made the top ten, while only New York (3) and Boston (5) ranked for the East Coast.

Kentucky Mom Cooks Up Metadata Recipe For Increasing YouTube Partner Revenue – Can Your Mum Do That? @SEWatch

Meta data is the words that you use in your title description and tags. Youtube analyzes these words to not only find your video, but also to target ads to your channel. Therefore, to increase the likelihood of companies advertising against your channel, you need to create keyword based inventory for them to target their ads.

60% Of You Don’t Like Google Instant

# 59% said they DISLIKE Google Instant
# 22% said they LIKE Google instant

comScore Study Says Ad Retargeting Generates Strongest Lift

ReTargeted ads had the highest lift in trademark search behavior with a whopping 1,046 percent. The downside is that retargeting by the very nature of the beast, doesn’t reach as many potential customers

Want Bing Rewards? You’ll Need Bing’s Toolbar, Windows Live ID, PC & IE!!!

People must first install the Bing Bar toolbar, have a Windows Live ID, be on a Windows machine and use Internet Explorer. No Chrome or Firefox, no Macs.

This post was written by

Sage Lewis – who has written 333 posts on SageRock Digital Marketing Blog.
My name is Sage Frederick Lewis. My kid's name is Indiana Sage Lewis. I am filled with love and passion for many things in life. The list of things I like about life is MUCH longer than the things I don't like about life. So, since you don't have all day reading about the mundane things I love (some of which, btw, include: Rocky, Indy, SageRock, movies, pizza, cheesecake, running, exploring.) here are the things I don't like: Driving Meetings Zucchini (I like it fine. I'm just allergic.) I think that's pretty much it. My Twitter account is: http://twitter.com/sagerock My YouTube Channel is: http://www.youtube.com/sagerock