At the New Communications Forum conference last week, Chris O’Brien from the San Jose Mercury News mentioned during a presentation that 2/3rds of the traffic to the paper’s website comes from news aggregators (like Google News) and search engines.  This figure was higher than I expected, so I mentally filed away the tidbit to write about at some point.

Then today I came across a site called Newsknife, which breaks down which newspaper websites have the most articles appear in Google News.  I found this fascinating, so I quickly compared the twenty five newspapers that appeared most often in Google News with a list of the twenty five largest newspapers in terms of print circulation.  A couple of quick things jumped out at me:

• The Mercury News, Washington Times and Akron Beacon Journal were the papers that performed the best in Google News as compared to their print circulation.  For the Mercury News and Washington Times, I’d guess they do well because both papers have a lot of content niche news topics (silicon valley and politics) that are very popular on time.  So it makes sense that Google News might have a lot of their stories.  I have no idea why the Akron Beacon Journal is in Google News so much.
• The Wall Street Journal and Rocky Mountain News were the largest newspapers that did not appear on the list of top newspapers sites in Google News.  I suspect the Journal will start showing up soon given their recent deal with Google.  I don’t know what is going on with the Rocky Mountain News.

However, I was mostly left slightly baffled as to what to make of the data and why certain sites performed better than others.  How important is optimizing for Google News?  What is the impact of registration walls?  How important is the topics that are covered?  I think these questions are important to answers, as, based on the figures from the Mercury News, performance in search engines and news aggregators plays a huge role in the success or failure of a newspapers online program.  I’ll try to write more on this later after the data has a chance to sink in.

Anyway, below is the raw data.  Please share any thoughts you have in the comments.

Writing about Google, Inc. hits close to home, quite literally, as I am a past townie of Lenoir, North Carolina, which will soon become Google’s latest data farm. As I walked around my hometown a week ago, I began to wonder what the town would look like when the median income of the citizenship raises by $20,000. Moreover, I began to wonder just how much Google actually owns in the world. After some delving, I was shocked to learn that the company is only a few smart business deals away from owning Heaven itself.

Google currently owns over 520 domain names, ranging from ones of which you have already heard to ones that you likely never will. But do not kid yourselves, Google still owns them, and they always will. I predict that in another year, the number will reach approximately 1000 domains.

The company’s slogan has been “Don’t Be Evil” for some time now, although the company learned a sour lesson when dealing with its search engine in China. Unfortunately for the company, evil and big business sometimes go hand in hand. I personally do not blame Google for making the choices that it did, but I do believe that the setting of itself on such a seemingly high moral pedestal is bound to draw criticism until the moniker is dropped. Giving in has never been Google’s strong suit, however, and for good reason. If they had given in to the dark side, they may not have been elected Fortune Magazine’s Top Business for which to work, despite criticism from past employees of ageism and sexism.

If owning a large list of domains, being the top business for which to work, and being “not evil” were not enough, Google also simply owns a lot of…stuff. Some of its most recent acquisitions include YouTube, Tonic Systems, and even a 5% stake in AOL. Most recently, Google acquired DoubleClick, a company that provides Internet ad serving services. The deal was finalized on March 11, 2008. The types of tech that Googles embraces into its corporation are so varied that it leaves me scratching my head at what Google couldn’t acquire.

Lenoir is not going to be known for making great furniture much longer; it is going to be known for googling. You might as well familiarize yourself with Google’s Corporate Homepage; after all, they will own you one day.

I was doing some work on Google and did a quick search for Barack Obama. I wanted to go to his main campaign site, so I clicked on the ad that shows up as the first result. I often find just typing search phrases in Google quicker than trying to type in a URL or sort through where I have the site bookmarked.

Not surprisingly, I got taken to a page designed specifically for Google Adwords that encourages me to join the Obama mail list. Below is a screenshot of the landing page.

This is pretty typical. The only thing interesting here is that the page doesn’t include any obvious way to opt out of the sign up process. Most of the time when you do these sorts of pages you get the little “Skip to go to Website” option. Want to to go to the website? Can’t get there from here. It seems to be designed in a way that conveys that the only option is to sign up. (more…)

I'm at the New New Web conference in Reston and just listened to Tim Ferriss of 4 Hour Work Week fame speak during our chicken lunch.  His whole pitch is worth listening to but I was particularly interested in an anecdote he gave about how he came up with the name of his book.

4 Hour Work Week was originally titled "Dealing Drugs for Fun and Profit."  For a variety of reasons this wasn't going to fly with publishers or retailers.

Ferriss and his team came up with twelve alternative names and were pretty much deadlocked. 

Ferriss decided on the name by running a Google Adwords campaign.  He bought ads for relevant keywords for all twelve potential book titles and tracked which titles performed the best.  The clickthrough rate for 4 Hour Work Week was by far the highest, so that is what his book is called.

I think this is a smart and novel approach to naming.  Google Adwords as a cheap and real time focus group.

Google Maps has always been pretty easy to use to embed maps in your website. The tool has featured an open API since the beginning, which made it easy for folks with a fairly advanced understanding of the web to post maps on their site. But it still wasn’t dead simple

This all changed in April when Google launched My Maps, which allows users to create maps from a simple web-based interface that they can then embed into their own website using an iframe. My Maps made using Google Maps as simple as inserting YouTube code in a blog post. It even allows you to draw line between points on the map and insert HTML code in the little address pop up thing. You can view a sample map below that highlights the location of our office here.

I’ve personally been using this tool a lot in my work. For simple maps, this tool can save you a lot of time. Check it out if you haven’t already. (more…)

I submitted a question to the CNN/YouTube Debate, and last week YouTube invited me to come down to Charleston, SC for the debate. I’m one of about 15-20 people who were selected for a virtually all access experience to the debate. In fact, we get to go into the Spin Room after the debate to try to get follow up and reaction responses to the debate questions. More to come in a few days after I get back to DC…Remember, that The Bivings Group is working for Fred Thompson. Also, I don’t represent Google or YouTube.

Blogger Removed from NCAA Baseball Game for Live Blogging (via CNET): Courier-Journal staff blogger Brian Bennett was removed from an NCAA baseball game by officials who told him that "blogging from an NCAA championship event is against NCAA policies". CNET author Daniel Terdiman hit the nail on the head when he said,

"It's understandable if sports organizations like the NCAA want to control access to video of their games, but it's hard to see how they can expect news organizations to keep from reporting the news as it happens.  And when they do, it makes them look like they are stuck very, very far in the past."

Why Real Estate Agents have Good Reason to Fear the Web (via Techdirt):  A study released by two economists from Northwestern University shows that home sellers in Madison, Wisconsin who use real estate agents do not get higher sale prices for their homes than people who sell their homes by themselves.  Apparently, Madison is home to a robust for-sale-by-owner website (FSBOMadison.com ) that allows people to circumvent real estate agents and successfully go it alone.  Authors on TechDirt and in the New York Times conclude that for-sale-by-owner websites legitimize real estate agents' fear of the web.  I think, however, that the success of this website is that real estate agents should expand their use of the web for marketing and outreach rather than shy away from it.  I found this report interesting given the relatively new popularity of real estate websites.

Google Gives Advertisers More Control (via CNET ; also see HULIQ): Google is changing its AdWords program to allow advertisers to see exactly which sites their ads appear on and to run placement performance reports, which will show advertisers performance metrics for each site where their ads appears.  These changes are an effort by Google to give advertisers more control over their ad campaigns and to provide more transparency to advertisers.

Today Cyberjournalist points to a feature on the Washington Post website called Local Explorer. Cyberjournalist summarizes:

You can map information on recent area home sales, crime incidents, schools, fire and police stations, restaurants, bars, hospitals, movie theaters and more. Local Explorer also has facts and figures, local news, classifieds and upcoming events that will help take users further inside area communities.

This is one of the better Google Maps mashups I’ve seen. If you don’t live in the DC area, click here to see the results for zip code 20007 (our office zip).

Earlier today Google launched a new feature called Hot Trends, which shows you the 100 hottest search terms on Google in near real time. You can also go back and browse the hot terms for previous days.

Note that this is not a list of the most popular searches on Google. Instead, Hot Trends “analyzes millions of searches to find those that are deviating the most relative to their past traffic.” Sounds good and useful.

The Google Blog has a post with a full explanation.

I took a look at who is buying Google text ads for searches for Democratic contenders in the 2008 presidential election.  Let's now look at the Republicans.

Read below for the ads that I found.  Here's a few general trends I found: (more…)

You know those text ads on the right hand side of Google search result pages?  I wonder who is trying to cash in the 2008 US Presidential race.  Back in February Michael Bassik over at techPresident did an investigation into which 2008 Presidential candidates had purchased text-ads.  I've decided to take a brief look at any site buying ads for searches for candidate names.

Let's see who is trying to cash in on the Democrats.  Click here for the Republicans.

Read below for the ads that I found, but here's a few general trends I found: (more…)

I’d like to take a moment here and point out a nifty new feature on Google maps. Google just launched something called “My Maps”, which gives users the ability to create their own maps, adding their own personal landmarks, lines, and shapes. You can keep your maps private, or make them available to the public via Google Earth and local searches.

I was messing around with My Maps this morning and found it incredibly easy to use. You can add pictures to your placemarkers, choose from a variety of different types of markers, and really customize the map to fit your own purpose. There is no programming or tech knowledge necessary at all; simply use your Google account to create and save your own map.

I made a map this morning that has some great DC area restaurants (and some other random stuff) on it.

Initially, I can think of a few ways that this will be useful:

• Bloggers writing about any kind of traveling. In theory bloggers could create a Google map so that their readers can visually follow where they are going (or where they have been). For example, a friend of mine went on a cross-country road trip last summer, and this would have been a really cool feature for her to use in her emails to her friends back home.
• Business sponsoring events. What a great way to enable supporters to not only get directions to an event, but to find nearby businesses and conveniences. Businesses or organizations holding conventions (think: political conventions), fundraising events, luncheons, conferences, etc., could create Google maps to show patrons where area hotels, restaurants, and airports are located in relation to the venue.
• Political support groups. On Hillary Clinton’s Senate website, she had a feature that allowed supporters to sign up to have Hillary Clinton house parties. This version of Google maps would have been a great collaborative tool. Supporters could have added their location to the Google map, allowing Hillary Clinton supporters to find one another for the purpose of having house parties. I’m sure politicians for the 2008 cycle will come up with more than one way to use this feature for their online campaigns.
• Businesses with lots of clients. Instead of just listing corporate clients on a website, businesses could post their clients on a Google map to give prospective customers a new way of looking at client lists. Colleges and universities could use this as a similar marketing tool: instead of showing pie charts of where students are from, use a Google map to illustrate these facts.

Anyway, those are just a few ideas. I think that this customizable map product is a pretty powerful tool. It’s a lot of fun and, more importantly, it has the potential to be useful. Happy Mapping!

You can read more about the launch of Google MyMaps on O’Reilly Radar.

I had a couple of great conversations with people about SMS at the recent Politics Online Conference. That's what I like best about conferences — the interaction gets me thinking. It got me thinking and talking about SMS and here are my thoughts on the viral potential of SMS.

What makes a medium a good conduit of a viral message? Widespread use. 

First of all for SMS cell phone text messaging to be successful as a medium that encourages viral message spreading amongst a specific demographic, its use needs to be frequent amongst this demographic. I decided to take a look at different kinds of current and future users of SMS to see which demographics would seem to be large enough to encourage viral message spreading via SMS.

Different types of SMS users 

Everyday SMS users

• Demographic 1: 10 to 20 year olds.
  Viral potential: High
  Example: Parents will get their kids unlimited SMS plans so as not to incur high voice plan charges.
  This seems likely and there’s also a small possibility that these kids will continue to use SMS when they grow up – I personally doubt they will because superior technology will be widely available by then. In any case, I think this definitely is or will be the most important SMS demographic.

• Demographic 2: low-income individuals and people working in environments with no internet access.
  Viral potential: High
  Example: Used successfully in organizing immigration reform demonstrations in Washington DC.
  SMS may work well with demographics that do not have regular access to email and IM. Email and IM are more powerful and more functional, and home broadband users and office employees have access to both of them during most of the hours in a day. 

(more…)

A mock up of the Google homepage done in the Yahoo! design style is making the rounds today. Steve Bryant, who put this together, did a great job on it. But let’s just say I’m of the definite opinion that Google has been smart to keep things simple.

CNBC relaunched its website a few days ago after being offline for six months due the expiration of its deal with Microsoft. Here is a quick look at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the redesigned site.

The Good

(1) According to Techcrunch, the site will have between three and eight hours of fresh video content available each day. A web show called “Market in a Minute” will summarize market happenings twice per hour. Sounds good.

(2) Most CNBC anchors appear to have their own blogs on the site that are being updated nearly every day (see Phil LeBeau’s blog here). You can search for tags, sectors and companies across blogs. This makes it easy to access all blog entries that mention, say, Microsoft.

(3) CNBC Plus will allow users to watch live CNBC TV content from their computers for $9.99 a month. That is not that interesting to me, but for business users this might be a good option.

(4) You can easily save/submit CNBC content to Digg and del.icio.us (see right). I’m not sure the content here lends itself to those sites, but it is worth a try.

The Bad

(1) The design of the site feels heavy and, well, old. The whole thing has that Microsoft/MSNBC.com feel to it. The site is also very slow.

(2) Given the video focus, it is disappointing that the only option is to play Windows Media Player versions of the videos. If you are only going to offer one video option, it seems like it should be Flash given the success of YouTube and others with that format.

(3) There is no way to comment on staff blog entries (or any other site content), although they do have a weird feature where they invite you to sent them comments via regular email. As far as I can tell there isn’t any really any user generated content on the site.

(4) I don’t see anything in the company profile area (Microsoft example) that would cause people to switch from sites like Yahoo Finance (example) and Google Finance (example).

The Ugly

(1) The search is completely broken. You can see the results for a sitewide search for “Autozone” on the right (which is that there are nor results). This despite the fact that there is clearly an Autozone story on the site homepage. Searches for Microsoft also produced no results.

(2) The Video section has a promising Most Viewed feature that presumably allows you to access the most popular videos. Unfortunately, when you click on this link it says there are no results. So I guess that is broken as well.