Blog o'RAMA

For someone who has thousands of ideas for great websites but not enough HTML/javascript coding knowledge for the average perfectionist, I've just found a great new solution for making quick, easy and extremely cost effective websites.

I can't take the credit for thinking of this great idea. While at Leadership Summit for the American Marketing Association (AMA) earlier in the month, I met the good people of the Rochester Chapter of the AMA. Their website is made completely from interconnected blogs. They use typepad as the software which costs under $150 a year for a unlimited # of blogs license. Here is their site http://www.ama-rochester.org/

What a genius idea!

BTW-leave it to marketers to come up with the most perfect name for their blog-Blog o'RAMA. (Their chapter is abbreviated RAMA) Too cute!

Google Once Again Seeks to Add Historcal Data to Ranking Factors

Hold on to your seats folks, Google's decided to revisit using historical data as part of its ranking factors. This is causing quite a stir for the search engine marketing community. Information retrieval based on historical data isn't a new concept. Google attempted to introduce historical data to its ranking algorithm back in 2005; however, the USPTO rejected the original patent for reasons that seem to be rather innocuous, according to Bill Slawski of Search Engine Land.

Just like in 2005, these patent applications are guaranteed to cause a stir. Because if these patents go through, Google will be adding another dimension to the way they determine relevancy. Here are just some of the factors mentioned in these patent applications:

• Document inception dates - when the web page was created
• Document content updates/changes - how often is the content updated
• Query analysis - how often people click on the result, and how that query relates to other topics and changes over time.
• Link-based criteria - when do the links appear and leave a site, whether or not the site is gaining link popularity or loosing (which could indicate whether or not a site is fresh or getting stale). The quality of the links, whether or not they're coming from authority sites.
• Anchor text - how often the anchor text is changed, whether or not it's staying fresh and keeping up to date with the content on the site.
• Traffic - studying traffic patterns over time to determine seasonality, freshness and quality of the content.
• User behavior - how many times that search result is selected, how much time the user spends on the page, and whether or not the user immediately exits (indicating that wasn't what the user was looking for)
• Domain-Related Information - legitimacy of the domain, how long it's been registered and whether or not it's hosted on a "good" domain server.
• Ranking History - monitoring for sudden spikes in rankings which might indicate a fresh new topic or spamming the search engines. Rate at which users selected that ranking over time.
• User maintained generated data - how often do users bookmark or select the web page as a favorite.

Obviously, it's a little early to run out and start yelling, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling..." However, internet marketers should make themselves familiar with these potential Google changes. There is some wonderful commentary already available on this interesting new SEO development:

• SEOMOZ.org's Article on the Google Patent - Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data
• Bill Slawski's Article, Google's Historical Data Ranking Factors Revisited, plus Advertising Rankings

On a side note, if you get anything out of this blog post, get this: freshness is becoming more and more important to the search engines. MSN/Live is already weighing the freshness of content in their algorithm, so don't rest on your laurels...keep your on-page and off-page factors fresh and hold on because SEO is getting more interesting.

Cool New Sites I'm Watching

Kiptronic

"Kiptronic provides dynamic ad insertion technology delivered as a service. Our technology merges highly targeted advertising and video and audio files at point-of-download to disconnected devices. These include the iPod, which has surpassed 100 million in unit sales thus far, as well as other MP3 players, mobile phones, multi-function devices such as the PSP, and laptops."

Ning

Ning is the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds.

MySpace Politics

When I speak of Politics, I mean the ruling Government of these United States of America. Mark Burnett, who some call the genius behind many of the Reality Shows on Television (I am not one of them), has partnered with MySpace on an interactive Internet/TV series, to find America's "Next Great Politician" on a show to be called "Independent" Yes you read that right, amongst the unsigned rock groups and Pedophiles there may also be the next Mayor of Springfield (Vote Quimby!), a City Councilman, or even a Congressman.
The idea is simple, every week people advise the candidates on which national issues to tackle during their campaign and then vote according to responses. The winner receives $1 million dollars to either donate to a political cause or to their own future political campaign. Not sure if he has tossed his proverbial hat into the ring, but this guy certainly has my vote. I like his views on animal rights.

Social Networking Euphoria

Yesterday Fox Interactive Media (FIM), a division of News Corporation, released a series of research findings from the first comprehensive study examining both the growth and marketing power of online social networks yesterday at the “Never Ending Friending,” a conference in Los Angeles for FIM marketing clients.

In conjunction with Isobar and Carat USA and leading independent marketing research firms TRU, TNS and Marketing Evolution, the study incorporated both qualitative and quantitative feedback from about 3,000 U.S. Internet users.

As we already know, social networks have caused a fundamental shift in the way people interact with each other and with media. The study revealed more than 70% of Americans 15-34 are actively using social networks online, and the research showed social networking sites taking a strong foothold in the primetime hours; enriching existing relationships with family and friends; and initiating meaningful brand connections.

This shouldn't be surprising! Many of us are on one or many social networking sites (and if you're not you need to be!) and already realize the power of these online societies. We rely on the power within these networks for business or pleasure or a combination of both.

The study brings to life more facts:

• Of U.S. social networkers asked which free-time activity they would choose, users chose interacting on sites such as MySpace.com as their favorite activity online or offline, ahead of television viewing and on par with cell phone usage.
• Of those polled, 69% said they utilize social networks to connect with existing friends and 41% said they use the sites connect with family members.
• Current social networkers spend on average more than seven hours per week on social networking sites.
• More than 31% of online social networkers claim they spend more time on the Web in general after starting to use a social network.
• More than 40% of all social networkers said they use social networking sites to learn more about brands or products that they like, and 28% said at some point a friend has recommended a brand or product to them.

So what does all this mean? Why do we flock to online social networking sites like little kids to candy stores? Well the study went one step further to find out WHY users are so engulfed in social networking sites - to make our offline lives richer and more exciting! More than 48% said they are having more fun in life in general and 45% said their lives are more exciting as a result of spending time networking online. In addition, 57% said they’ve found more people with similar interests and 52% said they feel more in tune with what’s happening socially in their lives due to social networking sites.

So what group do you fall in? Let us know!

A Blog is Not just a Blog - it is also a Newsletter

My Google Home Page is personalized to capture my favorite blogs through an RSS Feeder. Every time I open a browser window I peruse my favorite bloggers headlines, click on one or two and then try to remember why I opened the browser in the first place.

I have also subscribed to a number of blogs that I enjoy through Feedblitz and I get an email from Feedblitz every time they make a new post. (You can subscribe to this blog and get an email every time we make a new post - please look for the sign up box in the top left corner.)

A Blog is not just a Blog anymore, now with these two types of 'push' marketing services, the blog can play the same role in your marketing program as a newsletter, reminding your opt-in subscribers that you're out there, informing them of new news, giving them a platform to forward your message to an associate etc. So, think of your blog posts not just as web entities, but as email newsletter messages as well.

Jay Berkowitz

Yellow Pages are Dying a slow death...do you use them anymore?

On March 25th I took a picture of the Yellow Pages, still in their bag, in my neighbors recycling box. Please see my blog post Do you know where your Yellow Pages are?

A comment by Ken took issue with our position on the Yellow pages:

"Am glad to hear you are tech savvy, but you’re a little of course on your comments about print Yellow Pages. US adults referenced them over 15 billion times last year. And that’s just the print versions. 90% of all adults reference them at least once a year, 75% in a typical month, and 50+% on average month. How about on average 1.4X each week? And let’s remember that not everyone has Internet access to reference those online products you are talking about.

There is no other directional media that can provide buyers the information they need when they need it about local businesses than the print Yellow Pages. It is truly the original local search engine…."


This month I took several pictures, over the period of 10 days of the yellow pages sitting outside the entrance to our building at Ten Golden Rules in Boca Raton, Florida. (See below). None of the people who worked in our building cared enough to bring in the Yellow pages and I'm not sure what happened to them after almost two weeks!

With the growth of local search, always on internet and mobile search capability does anybody use the Yellow Pages anymore?

I think the Yellow Pages are dying a slow death. What do you think?

Six Things I learned from Mitch Joel

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the amazing Mitch Joel this week. Mitch is the super blogger Twist Image and podcaster The Six Pixels of Separation from Beautiful Montreal.

Here are the 6 points that stood out for me from Mitch's presentation:

1. The Mom Factor
The internet isn't just for 14-24 year old males anymore. 1/2 of YouTube viewers are over age 34, 17% of Playstation owners are over the age of 50 and Mitch showed a video of an enthusiastic 79 year old YouTube videographer.

Internet users are distinguished by their 'tribes' attitudinal similarities not generational.

2. Blogs are for Companies too
1/2 of all Fortune 500 Companies have blogs.

3. KNOW CONTROL
It is critical for companies to KNOW how to CONTROL interactive messaging, particularly in times of crisis. Mitch shared the story of how the Kryptonite bicycle locks lost over $20 Million when a YouTube video showed how to break into the lock using a bic pen. The company didn't recognize the threat, they didn't post anything on their website and they didn't KNOW how to CONTROL the situation.
Mitch advised companies to use tools such as Google Alerts and Yahoo Alerts to monitor messages about your brands and to watch Technorati for links to your company.

4. Web 1.0 = Eyeballs. Web 2.0 = Interactivity
The old web measured how many people viewed a site, the new web is all about interactivity and UGC User Generated Content. Sites can measure their success and impact by how many people interact with the site and contribute content (NON-SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE PLEASE JOIN THE CONVERSATION AND COMMENT ON OUR BLOG!!!)

5. How many Pixels are we separated?
Mitch demonstrated the power of connectivity with LinkedIn. He was able to use his LinkedIn network to make an important business contact at Mattel within 20 minutes.

If you're on LinkedIn please send me a note and let's link up!

6. Adopt Internet Marketing WITH not INSTEAD OF
Mitch urged everyone to go back to their offices and ADD 1-2 interactive elements to their marketing mix. Interactive marketing can be effective without tremendous expense, especially in the start up and testing phase. You don't need to convince your organization to drop traditional marketing activities to start some effective online activities such as a blog, a YouTube video or a podcast.

PS - Mitch, I'm jealous, all of my lists are 10 items long, it's a lot easier to write 6

PPS - I followed Mitch at the podium, he's a REALLY tough act to follow :)

Jay Berkowitz

How to Advertise to Moms

john Edelson, founder of www.Time4Learning.com shared the following list of 'How to advertise to moms' with us . John credits Maria Bailey, author of Marketing to Moms, and T4L board member, who he is paraphrasing.

How to Advertise to Moms

1. Show visible benefits to using the products
2. Use pictures of cute kids (moms love aspirational family pictures irrespective of how little it reflects their personal situation).
3. Show solutions to everyday challenges
4. Share ways to enrich their children
5. Demonstrate safety information
6. Provide useful ideas or advice.
7. Feature Value

Tasteless! News Outlets Advertise Tragedy via Pay-Per-Click

After tragedy struck Virginia Tech, New York Times, The Washington Post and The First Post, a British online news magazine, created Google AdWords campaigns advertising the latest coverage. CNN and Fox News focused their advertising dollars on Yahoo. San Jose Mercury News features some of the pay-per-click ads running at the time of the tragedy in their article, "News outlets buy search engine ads to promote Virginia Tech shooting coverage." Even now, news outlets such as, MSNBC and The First Post, are using Google AdWords to advertise their post coverage of the tragedy, citing the body count in their ad copy.

Pay-per-click in the past has been used to advertise goods and services, but now news outlets are using the Web to advertise the news. This recent development shows just how powerful search engine marketing has become to traditional media.

Last century when newspapers wanted to advertise the latest headlines to the mass public, they would hire newsboys to stand on the corner and shout out the latest headlines. But with the advent of pay-per-click advertising, news outlets no longer have to depend on young boys with strong voices, they have Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing (to name a few) at their beck and call.

Danny Sullivan, editor of the SearchEngineLand.com newsletter, points out a potential problem for news outlets that are using pay-per-click to advertise tragedy, "...can also leave you looking crass - that you're tapping in for a business purpose on a tragedy..." And I have to agree with Danny. While pay-per-click is a powerful advertising tool, news outlets are walking a fine line between informing the public and putting tragedy up for sale.

Warning - Google PPA Not Compatible with Adwords Editor

If you were recently invited to the Google PPA beta test and are using Adwords Editor to manage your campaign(s), don't immediately sign up for what should be a great opportunity. Once you start up a PPA campaign you can no longer use the Editor tool Get Recent Changes, an Adwords Editor Error pops up "Either the account you are trying to access does not exist, or you do not have permission to modify this account."

You need to decide if you would rather manage your existing Adwords account with Editor or start a Beta PPA action test. For the rest of my clients its not really an option, I would rather use the Editor to efficiently manage my PPC campaigns in Editor then managing my keywords and Text Ads in Adwords running a PPA campaign that has no information on chargebacks and other faults (but that is for another post).

Hopefully this is just a small glitch and it will be resolved with an Adwords Editor Update or code change. I have called and emailed my Adwords rep to get this issue resolved as well as bring it to their attention, as I have not seen or heard much about this issue. I will keep everyone posted as I hear back from Google and get the issue resolved, if anyone knows an immediate fix, email me at jeff at tengoldenrules com

Using New Media to Save Lives

Jay Berkowitz, CEO of Ten Golden Rules, will present the Ten Tips for Using PR to Drive Traffic to a Website on May 16, 2007 at The Association for Women in Communication's event "Using New Media to Save Lives."

In his Social Media Press Release Case Study, Jay will talk about Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and his involvement helping save the lives of pets that were left behind. Attend the event to hear his compelling story about the successful rescue mission with Rescue Rehab Home, a local charity dedicated to saving pets, and the role that his company's internet marketing strategy played in saving so many stranded animals.

During the presentation you'll learn tactics that made this campaign successful -- and how to use them in your own PR and marketing efforts. These include:

o How to develop a social media press release
o Search engine optimization keyword research techniques
o Search engine optimization for a website
o How to post a search engine press release
o How to use a press release to generate traffic to a website

The event takes place on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 from 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM at JM Family Enterprises, Inc. at 120 Jim Moran Blvd., Deerfield Beach, FL.

To learn more about the event or to register visit The Association of Women in Communication.

Learn more about Jay Berkowitz and TenGoldenRules.com

Is the survival of Internet Radio in Jeapordy?

I received the following email from Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora, an awesome internet radio player that creates stations based on your favorite songs or artists.

Hi, it's Tim from Pandora,

I'm writing today to ask for your help. The survival of Pandora and all of Internet radio is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. The new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays, and broadcast radio doesn't pay these at all. Left unchanged, these new royalties will kill every Internet radio site, including Pandora.
In response to these new and unfair fees, we have formed the SaveNetRadio Coalition, a group that includes listeners, artists, labels and webcasters. I hope that you will consider joining us.
Please sign our petition urging your Congressional representative to act to save Internet radio
Please feel free to forward this link/email to your friends - the more petitioners we can get, the better.
Understand that we are fully supportive of paying royalties to the artists whose music we play, and have done so since our inception. As a former touring musician myself, I'm no stranger to the challenges facing working musicians. The issue we have with the recent ruling is that it puts the cost of streaming far out of the range of ANY webcaster's business potential.
I hope you'll take just a few minutes to sign our petition - it WILL make a difference. As a young industry, we do not have the lobbying power of the RIAA. You, our listeners, are by far our biggest and most influential allies.
As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.

-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)

Jay Berkowitz

Ten Golden Rules to Present at NSSTA Annual Meeting

I'll be presenting the Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing on Wednesday, April 25 in Toronto to the National Structured Settlement Trade Association (NSSTA).

The NSSTA Annual Meeting will be held at the Fairmont Royal York located downtown.

Structured settlement is a financial or insurance arrangement, including periodic payments, that a claimant accepts to resolve a personal injury tort claim or to compromise a statutory periodic payment obligation. (Wikipedia)

Never been to Toronto, should be fun!

Google Buys DoubleClick

In a surprise move which should be no surprise, Google bought DoubleClick for 3.1 billion dollars according to the New York Times. Beating out a long time competitor in Microsoft, this new purchase gives them a powerful new tool in their media bag of tricks.

While it is true Google has done well in pay per click, it is not true they have done well in display advertising. In this field it is built on strong preexisting ties which Double Click has. With this one purchase Google now has access to the top rank publishers and advertisers in the market. With DoubleClicks recently announced advertising exchange which is quiet similar to Adwords from Google.

One of the most interesting aspects of this whole affair is that Google will in one package be able to cover the entire spectrum of display ads and Pay Per Click in a single interface. This combined with Google’s announcement of going to a Pay Per Lead concept will give them a definite edge.

Google has a sense of humor

Someone at GOOGLE has a sense of humor!

1. go to www.google.com
2. click on "maps"
3. click on "get directions"
4. type "New York" in the first box (the "from" box)
5. type "London" in the second box (the "to" box)
6. click on "get directions"
7. scroll down to step #23

LOL

Viral Marketing Hall of Fame Award Submission Deadline Extended

If you haven't submitted your viral marketing campaign to Marketing Sherpa's 2007 Viral Marketing Hall of Fame Awards you're in luck! The deadline has been extended until Tuesday, April 17th. So pick up the slack this weekend and get your submission in!

To submit go to http://s-zpgni-6932.sgizmo.com.

AOL Expands Pay-Per-Click and Other Advertising Offerings

For many years, search engine marketers have known that if you want your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to show on AOL, you needed to do it through Google AdWords. However, that is about to change because this week AOL launched the new AOL Search Marketplace, which accepts PPC ads exclusive for the Web search engine site, not just AdWords.

So what should advertisers keep in mind when considering whether or not they want to advertise on the new AOL Search Marketplace?

These new PPC ads run exclusively on the AOL Web search engine site, not on Google AdWords so your ads should target the AOL audience. It's not just PPC Ads, AOL is also offering advertisers the ability to coordinate third-party display ads from AOL's partner Advertising.com, video advertising and performance ads on the AOL Search network, which attracts more than 36 million unique visitors each month.

In an article covering the new AOL Search Marketplace, Chris Sherman from Search Engine Land highlights the results of the beta test. When AOL tested AOL Search Marketplace with 20 advertisers, the results were positive and most are increasing the spend on their campaigns based on the results the program delivered.

So internet marketers, get out your testing hats and give the new AOL Search Marketplace a try.

Blog Test - email me for $25 in Free Google Adwords

For the first ten people who email me, I will send them a coupon code for $25 in free Google Adwords jay (at) tengoldenrules dot com . The coupons are from a friend at Google and the New York Search Engine Strategies show.

Cool Tool-Referred to me TWICE in one day!

I'm not kidding, within minutes of each other, two different people, who are completely in different social-work circles, told me about Syntryx this week. It's a great resource for deep-mining , snooping and finding out what competitors are doing in terms of linking, SEO, and affiliate programs.

It's great for Brand Managers, Affiliate Recruiters, Media Buyers, Search Marketers and Ad Agencies.

Check it out, and be sure to tell them that Mande over at TenGoldenRules.com sent you! (I'm not paid to say that I promise!!!)


BTW...I'm headed off to the Balance Networking event tomorrow. If you are going to, I'd love to meet up. Going to be a great event with speakers such as Debbie Ford, and Mona Lisa Schulz!

Using Flash on a Website is like using a TV Commercial on the radio

Search Engine Strategies Chairman Danny Sullivan made a great point in a session at lunch today at SES New York . Google and the other search engines can't read the words on Flash websites, this has been the case for 10 years and likely this will never change.

Danny explained that building Flash websites and expecting the search engines to read them and show them in search results is like sending your tv commercial to the radio station and getting upset with the radio station because the video doesn't show.

Jay Berkowitz

Don't Block the Bots - FLASH hurts Pay Per Click results!

In a session at Search Engine Strategies in New York, Nick Fox from Google made the point that Flash landing pages hurt Pay Per Click performance like they hurt natural Search Engine Results.

His recommendation (backed up by MSN who announced they're adding landing page relevance to their formula in two weeks) 'Don't Block the Bots' (bots are automated website readers) from reading the page. Google now includes page relevance in the algorithm that determines how frequently and how high your ad shows in Pay Per Click, so if their automated readers hit the flash and can't read the page they can't evaluate the relevance. Find out more about how bots work at Google Webmaster Central

Jay Berkowitz

MSN To Launch Quality Based Rankings

Just announced a couple minutes ago at SES in the Quality Score Session. MSN's Brian Boland announced MSN to launch Quality Based Rankings in the next two weeks. Check back often for updates on MSNs new Rankings as well as updates from Search Engine Strategies.

Another Google Labs Experiment

On Friday Google Labs launched it's newest experiment - Google Voice Local Search (GVLS). GVLS is a free* telephone directory listing service (411) that is fully-automated and accessible from any phone by calling 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411).

Google Voice Local Search provides the same information as the local-business info you'd find on Google.com and is currently available in English, in the US, for US business listings. It will either connect you to the business or send you an text message with the number and address. Because it's in the experimental stages, they tell you it may not be available at all times and may not work for all users.

I tested it out this morning and it worked OK. As expected there are a few glitches with the system, but nothing TOO annoying. I tried two listings and had the same amount of success with each.

First I asked for Ten Golden Rules in Boca Raton, FL. The automated system picked up the city perfectly. I repeated the company name three times - twice with no success and the third time it heard Ten Golden World - that's as effective as no listing at all! So I reverted to the text entry and typed in TEN using my keypad. Success!! Ten Golden Rules was the first result so I was happy.

Second I asked for the Eden Florist in Miramar, FL. Again the automated system recognized the city instantly. And again I repeated the company name and defaulted to text entry after the third attempt. I typed in EDEN with my keypad and first result Eden Florist & Gift Baskets WOOHOO!!

Although I was not impressed with the voice recognition with the company names, I can't say for sure if that was a system glitch or partially attributed to the cell phone connection and the fact that I was standing outside in the wind. I did like how after three voice attempts the system prompts you to type in the name using your keypad, that should be an option from the beginning. The annoyance factor was low and the ease of use high, so I give GVLS a 3 out of 5 rating!

*Google doesn’t charge you for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider. If you opt for the information in a SMS message, standard charges apply as well.

Twitter is IM (Instant Messaging) on steroids.

People keep asking why Twitter is important. Twitter is IM (Instant Messaging) on steroids.

You sign up with friends, or people you want to follow. And if you’re signed on to your Twitter.com home page whenever your friends make a 140 character post or ‘tweet’ you see it instantly. You can also sign up to receive twitter on your cell phone, which I recently did when I spent a couple hours at the pool, it certainly was entertaining. Basically you use it to stay current with friends and other people you want to follow.

In our business (internet marketing consulting), we need to know about the latest tools and technologies 1) to be able to catch ‘hot’ applications before competitors and client’s competitors (do you remember the early days of the pop-up? your competitor was popping up over your site and you didn't know how to stop it) 2) to have an answer to what the application is, if any for each client.

What I like about Twitter is that I have set up ‘friends’ relationships with ex MSN videoblogger Robert Scoble, famous podcaster Adam Curry, AOL’s Jason Calacanis, etc and I get to see what they’re up to and what they’re discovering, and share my insights with them. John Edwards is Twittering too. And there are a TON of new Twitter applications coming out, here is a really cool application called Twittervision that lets you see people’s twitters from all around the world.





Here is the Wikipedia definition.

And a blog post by Steve Rubel about the sell value of Twitter:

And a Financial Times Article on Twitter

Please check out twitter and sign me up as a friend!

Jay Berkowitz

Attention Viral Marketing Gurus

MarketingSherpa is having their third annual Viral Marketing Hall of Fame awards! Are you among the best in viral marketing? Here's your chance to prove it! Campaigns can be video/audio clips, e-cards, online games, flash, microsites, tell-a-friend boxes or any other type of campaign you might have done.

What you need to submit:

• The basics (client, date, brand, etc.)
  
• The goals of the campaign
  
• The strategies you applied to achieve goals
• How you got the word out
  
• What kind of buzz it generated

The deadline is just one week away and must be received by 5 pm EST Friday, April 13.
Submit your viral marketing campaign entry at http://s-zpgni-6932.sgizmo.com.

Past winners include AT&T, Mazda, Brawny Towels, Virgin Records and CareerBuilder.

More information can be found at http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?id=29927. A list of last year's winners, creative samples and ad results date are available at:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=322

Vividas: Amazing Full Screen streaming HD Video Technology

I recently viewed a demonstration of Vividas streaming HD video according to their website "Vividas delivers full-screen, broadcast-quality video streamed over the Internet and within corporate networks".

We knew it was coming, but when you see it it is amazing. No buffer. No mini screen. Full HD clarity. The Ghost Rider trailer was a real WOW for me.

Jay Berkowitz

Yes but No but Yes blog

It's funny, not too clean, but more than a few good laughs available at Yes But No But Yes Blog .

Google Free Internet Service

Over the last couple years, Google has mentioned numerous times that it wanted to offer free Wi-Fi access to everyone beginnning with its target launch in San Francisco. Well quietly on Sunday April 1st, 2007, Google announced that it was offering anyone in the US and Canada Free Internet Service through Google TiSP. It seems simple enough, Google TiSP "is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines." The directions after getting your free kit, are basically flush your fiber optic cable down the toilet, plug the other end of the cable into the provided wireless router wait an hour and then you should have wireless throughout your house.
Google in its FAQ section, does state that they will be gathering DNA sequencing of your personal bodily output to display online ads that are contextually relevant to your culinary preferences, current health status and likelihood of developing particular medical conditions going forward.
I think it is a great opportunity and have already signed up. Once I get the installation kit, and get surfing, I look forward to the integration with Google Checkout which should make package delivery much more convenient.
If you would like to read more about Google TiSP, the Press Release can be found here.