Urban Vancouver

I first must say that I am sorry for not having posted in the last few weeks, I was on a search for a new home for eMarketing 101. Sonia & I as well as eMarketing 101 are officially moving on May 24. Moving in BC does suck, I can say that much. Thankfully, Sonia prepared a “marketing plan” that really helped the process. It involved a sales letter, a description of our couple (where we met and things like these) as well as an appropriate dress code. I did not believe in all of it but it all worked out in the end.

Over the last few months, there has been a lot of speculations over the Microhoo deal, the acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft and I have been reading a lot about it, even though I am not interested in reading, writing or commenting on these issues. I found that most of these articles were lame and filled with speculative outcome and its impact on the search industry. I did not treat those news seriously as much as I never believe in any potential Google Killer. That terminology all in itself is arrogant & unfounded. I am wondering why that would be the least but interesting. But apparently, people love to read about those things.

Understandibly, since nothing major was going on, that potential deal had a lot of press. Nevertheless, the best comment on what could have happened is clearly summarized today by Gord Hotchkiss in a Search Insider Article called: Don’t Crown Google Yet—The Rules of Engagement Are Still Being Determined. In this article, the only one I enjoyed reading on the Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition, Gord points out that it is a little premature to declare unconditional victory to Google. Even according to Google, we’ve barely begun to play the search game. To declare it won now would probably be as myopic as awarding the crown to AltaVista in 1997. With his usual incisive style, Gord goes on by comparing Yahoo & Microsoft with 2 dysfunctional families that could have never made things better. Delicious.

It is the one and only article you should read on the Microhoo failed acquistion.

We’re introducing a comprehensive member ranking system on NowPublic. Essentially it’s a way to identify the most active and effective newshounds on the site.Your stats - number of stories, comments, “good stuffs” etc.- will be counted and compared with other members to create an extensive leaderboard. Each action on the site will be weighted differently in determining scores (hint: the most influential stats are stories, comments, good stuffs, and front page stories). Details will be tweaked as we go along, and we’ll be looking for feedback to improve it. Let us know your thoughts in the forum once you’ve checked it out. 

Thanks again to Ryan Gibson from the Rimm-Kaufman Group for sharing some top-notch tips on paid search. If you missed the call, we will be posting the full length replay on the Elastic Path website. Until then, here’s a recap of the main points:

Keyword Development is 50% of Your Success

Keyword research is essential because it ultimately determines which searches your ads will appear for. Keywords must be appropriate, specific and capture the variations of how people search for the products you sell.

“Long tail” terms are desirable. Although they don’t get a lot of clicks, there is not much competition and it’s the specificity that makes them high-converting. You can also get them low-cost, and the lower the cost, the lower the risk. You’re not spending anything unless they are clicked on. Long tail terms in aggregate may be attracting a small percentage of clicks but be driving the highest number of sales because they convert highly.

General (and shorter) queries may indicate one is in research stage and thus, convert lower than more specific searches, when customers are aware of exactly what they are looking for.

Keyword List Tips

Test 3-10 Keywords per SKU

Modifiers don’t count, such as “buy widgets” or “buy widgets online.” Also, branded terms don’t count. Rather, you want to test out unique terms. So start with a URL (product page, right down to the sku - so if you sell blue and red widgets, they have their own keywords, as do different sizes). 2 benefits to this approach are:

1. Ensures you have the product you’re creating the term for
2. Makes it easier to tie up correct landing pages

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9 Ecommerce Innovations: What's Now & What's Next
Free webinar: June 19th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Register to Attend

VIDFest is Vancouver's International Fest for all things around the new and interactive media space and is produced by New Media BC and Telefilm.

KK is on duty as a poster boy for the event - his hoodie sweatshirt and scruffy face adorning magazine ads throughout Cascadia and the event kicking off next week, so here's a quick guide to get you up to speed.

First, be sure you are subscribed to the VIDFest RSS feed and friend up the VIDFest Flickr photostream.

There are several parts to the May 21-24th event - well really, 11 parts when combined with the two-day Vancouver International Game Summit 2008. Here's the official blurb:

VIDFEST is eleven events over four days, including conferences, an awards gala, an international partnering forum, a pitch fest, and a recruiting fair.

Let's explore shall we:

Wednesday night starts off the spectacle with a reception at the Vancovuer Art Gallery with "the new KRAZY The Delirious World Of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art exhibit. Plus, see 1500 lbs of mechanical mayhem in action. It’s the Mondo Spider of BurningMan fame - a super cool, ridable, mechanical walking machine."

Next, the International Partnering Forum (IPF) - We'll be representing at at the Granville Island Hotel for most of the day but i am not sure what to make of this event quite yet.

As instructed, we selected 6 companies for the organizers to pre-schedule :25 minute meetings with.

Sounds like corporate version of speed-dating - possibly slow and arduous but, since we host a tech community meet-up on our patio for Thursday bar-b-qs anyhow, i guess we'll keep our routine going and find some interesting folks to meet with and see what they are up to.

I suppose we don't look at opportunities like this as a chance to pitch Raincity Studios' services, but rather as a chance to find out what other companies, organizations, technologists are creating, struggling with, and enjoying immensely. In other words, forming relationship and building our (as well as the larger) industry eco-system is more important is paramount to us - moreso than pitching our comprehensive roster of web services.

At first we considered just scheduling time with all our usual amigo y amiga who are signed up, but since we see folks like Phillip Djwa and Megan Cole regularly, we filled up our slow-corporate-dating-list with a compelling list of organizations and companies - hand-selected based on cool stuff they might be up to, rather than whether they have a project, budget and timeline ;-).

If we aren't lined to chat, please come talk to us anyhow, introduce yourself - maybe we'll record a Raincity Radio podcasts, take some snapshots and go find a beer in the neighbourhood, and oh, yeah "talk some business".

• BC Film
• Consulate General of Canada - SF
• DFAIT
• Karyo-Edleman
• Korea
• SMIA
• Trade Commission of France

The IPF segues right into a happy hour at the Granville Island Hotel so we'll be sure to stay to the end.

Friday is the Creative Exchange Conference Sessions with a lineup of speakers kicked off by Chris Anderson at the Granville Island Stage (Arts Club) from 9~5.

Anderson is the Ed-in-chief of Wired and author of seminal new marketing tomes, The Long Tail and Free. I interviewed Chris in another lifetime and learned he was a Los Alamos physicist turned economist and technologist and is a big remote control airplane geekdad.

I also am planning to catch Heather Armstrong, the acerbic and translucent writer behind wonder-blog Dooce.com and EA's Yoshi Arima's bio describing him as a "Poet, Free Spirit, Artist" puts him on my list for sure.

Evan Biddell (pictured above with KK), best known for winning last cycle's Project Runway Canada (Evan's show blog), is coming in from T.O. to speak on the creativity-focused panel which sounds loaded with practical advice for bridging art and commerce.

Join this eclectic panel of creative geniuses as they compare and contrast their design process. Learn their trade secrets, how they find their personal muse, how to deal with creative block, and how to balance making art with making a living. All creatives unite!

With these fashionista pirates teamed up, there may be some fashion photography happening too.

Another session with a cause features three guys who've made a significant difference in ensuring you get your LOLcats unhindered. They will be addressing the critical issue of Stopping the Throttling of the Internet and wresting control of the tubes back for the people.

Here's the pitch:

Can I Have Your Attention Please? An Internet SOS

 

Margaret Mead said “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Join our small group of advocates for change as they discuss the active steps required to save the net and preserve our digital freedom.

Speakers:

- John Perry Barlow, Co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation; Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society
- Matt Thompson, Producer, Writer, Director, Campaign Strategist, ‘SavetheInternet.com’
- Jason Roks, Citizen 001, Digitalpeasants.com; Founder, misovision.org

Friday night at “The Hangar”, Great Northern Way Campus is the PopVox Awards gala - Smith is writing a post with the full low-down. Strutta is nominated (Strutta up for two PopVox Awards). Bonus: here's a Raincity Radio podcast from last year: New Media People's Choice Awards - Raincity Radio.

So that's is the quick version of VIDFest and where the Raincity Studios crew will be. How about you?

Venture Beat has a pretty standard report on someone else's report on made up numbers (projections) for ad spending on social networks: Social Network Ad Spending Projections Take a Dip.

Bar charts and tables with numbers follow the headline. What I thought was interesting wasn't the projections, but the assumption baked in:

The bulls of social networking, like widget-maker Slide's chief executive, Max Levchin, already see themselves as more engaging than television. But in order to prove themselves to advertisers on a large scale, they'll need to bring better metrics to the table than traditional media can offer, and that proven forms of online advertising like search ads can even better offer.

Facebook recenly released a guidebook for businesses titled: Facebook Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing. Don’t get too excited about the title, just because you set up a Fan Page for your business and buy a few social ads does not mean you’ll unleash a profit-virus, or even make a ripple in the pond. But the guide does help you understand what Facebook has made available for you and how to get a Page all set up.

Considering the price (free) it certainly isn’t a bad idea to put one up. Especially since any of your fans can set up a page on your behalf without anyone knowing it wasn’t you, so it’s a good idea to be the first out of the gate so there’s no confusion and you can control your introductory message and the way your Page functions yourself. Other users of Facebook could still set up unauthorized Pages, but at least the early fans won’t be usurped by the unofficial Page.

Unlike Facebook Groups and Sponsored Groups, Facebook Pages are like people — they can add applications. One application that is useful for online retailers and other businesses is Reviews. Reviews can only be added to Pages, not individual profiles, so you won’t find it in your regular applications search, but you can view the application page through the link.

(more…)

9 Ecommerce Innovations: What's Now & What's Next
Free webinar: June 19th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Register to Attend

At Handi, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future of mobile technologies around the world. In Japan QR codes are all the rage, mobile currency rules in Africa and our neighbours south of the border have had their iPhones for over a year now. It’s a fact that the mobile ecosystem we have in Canada can’t keep up with the pace of technology, but it didn’t stop local companies like EQO and AirG from building software that’s a big hit internationally.

To share our thoughts about where mobile will be five, ten years from now we started a second blog called MobScure. It will feature conversations about technologies that aren’t in Canada just yet… Come to read our analysis of latest trends around the world and Handi’s perspective on what the mobile future should be. See you on MobScure!

Wow - a whole series of reviews have come out in the wake of Kinzin’s new photo finishing subscriptions. Here’s a small sampling:

Three Kid Circus says:

For the delivery service alone, Kinzin is going to make me look like a rock star. But the online hub for interested family and friends is really cool, too - and keeps all those (photos from my) “Mommy Weekends” safely segregated.

Pumpkin Products chimes in with:

Kinzin allows you to upload pictures and stories to your page. You can create memory books, journals, family newsletters, and even more, all on Kinzin! But my favorite feature of all, by far, and the one that has initiated a truce of sorts with the grandparents, is that you can sign up for an additional service that mails your best 10 photos from every month to the address/es of your choice(…) No one has anymore excuses for why they don’t have pictures of your children featured prominently on their mantle. Plus, it’ll help out those non-computer literate members of your families (we all have ‘em). Zero effort from you, and voila! You’ve kept everyone up to date!

Modern Mama Marvels loves that the invitation process doesn’t require your relatives to go through a cumbersome sign-up process:

It’s an easy, private photo sharing site that even my most technologically-dumb family members can navigate. I was easily able to share our account with them and they were easily able to (…) view the pictures that we uploaded.

Ebony Mommy surprised her Mom with the Kinzin prints:

I chose a surprise tactic in the actual sending of my pictures just to get my family’s first reaction to receiving the images. Each grandmother was thrilled to get pics of their grandsons- one was so excited she called me immediately gleeful in the surprise of these recent pictures. She stated that while she enjoys getting pictures online having the real tangible photographs is something she really treasures. Getting through the protective layers of wrapping to get the special pictures of her boys made the moment even more exciting. Her strong hint that this is the perfect gift idea for families who live apart from grandchildren and loved ones definitely let’s me know we’ll be using Kinzin again…

It’s wonderful to get some positive feedback. We were a little nervous having the reviewers be the first people in to use the new print functionality, but it seems to have worked just as designed (thanks to the best development team ANYWHERE - I love working with these guys).