Welcome to Google-ington, DC?

The New York Times is reporting that Google’s head of global public policy, Andrew McLaughlin, is headed to Washington, DC to join the Obama administration. Considering CEO Eric Schmidt’s position on PCAST (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) some are wondering if there isn’t a tether attached to the Google Mothership in Mountain View that might raise some eyebrows.

The Times reports

Mr. McLaughlin will be deputy chief technology officer, reporting to Aneesh Chopra, the chief technology officer, who was previously Virginia’s secretary of technology, said these people, who agreed to speak only if their names were not used because Mr. McLaughlin’s appointment had not been announced.

Mr. McLaughlin’s move is likely to renew concerns among some Google rivals and public policy groups about Google’s growing clout in Washington.

Of course, having this story hit late on a Friday afternoon while most folks are thinking weekend and not monopoly (unless of course they are playing the board game at the beach) can cause some suspicion. Intentional? Who knows but it’s definitely not outside the realm of possibility.

The roster of former Googlers in the nation’s capital with far reaching power also includes

Katie Stanton, a former Google project manager, joined the White House as its director of citizen participation. And Sonal Shah, former head of global development at Google.org, now heads the White House Office of Social Innovation.

So this gives the weekend conspiracy theorist types something to nibble on for sure. Antitrust and Google have been closely associated in the recent past regarding the Google and Apple board issue and a recent settlement agreement made with authors and publishers.

So let’s let Google say their part

In a statement, Google said: “We understand that in order to be successful in Washington we need relationships on both sides of the aisle, and we have worked over the past few years to strengthen those relationships. As for a small handful of Googlers leaving the company to join the administration, we respect their decision to work in public service and wish them all the best in their new and exciting jobs.”

Great crafting of this message. When you say it’s just a small handful of people who have left Google to work in public service it sounds so altruistic. In Washington, however, you don’t need a lot of bodies to wield influence. You need position. Google has that now with their former players sitting in positions of influence. Oh, and that little thing about their CEO being on PCAST? Well, he’s not a former employee so I guess he doesn’t count?

Whether this results in some form of advantage for Google is unlikely to ever be found out unless something really obvious (read: a huge mistake) occurs. Until then it’s a matter of opinion. What’s yours? Too much Google in the Capital? Is this a non-issue?

Some Thoughts from the Inbound Marketing Summit – Dallas

Having spent the last few days in Dallas I am ready to go home. Don’t get me wrong. Dallas is a nice town. The Inbound Marketing Summit put on by New Marketing Labs’ Chris Brogan was great. Here’s why I need to get out, though. You see, I am a New York Giants fan. Although I only told one person on my entire trip of this fact, I suspect that Dallas Cowboys fans have some powerful social network that is at work behind the scenes. They know I am a Giants fan and they don’t like it. My plane can’t get off the ground fast enough. It’s not safe here for people like me.

As for the Inbound Marketing Summit? Great event. The two day program was rapid fire and full of relevant information about Internet marketing for all skill levels. Of course, the emphasis was on social media. Honestly, would you expect any different from a Chris Brogan event?

Here’s just a few themes and highlights from the summit:

• Online Reputation Monitoring and Management – While Andy Beal has known this for a while the rest of the world is starting to discover that this discipline is quickly becoming required over previously just being desired. Once any company or organization gets a taste of what is being said about their brand on the Internet, they realize that they can’t continue to go about business with their heads in the sand. They need to be aware of these things at the very least. An increasing number of larger companies are dabbling in the discipline. It appears that the majority of these are still viewing it with a “crisis alert” mentality but there is a growing awareness that a continual “ear to the tracks” for what is being said about your brand (and your competition’s brand) is absolutely essential for success both on and off line.

• Listening – This basic tenet of social media was pounded hard by most speakers and for good reason. The takeaway for social media is very similar to the age old guideline followed by good sales people. It goes like this; you have been given 2 ears and one mouth, use them in the same proportion. You should be listening at least twice as much as you are talking. No one cares about you or your product features unless you are addressing their needs directly. How do you understand their needs? Listen. If you are doing all of the ‘social’ in social media you probably need to shut up for a while and listen.

• Time – The reality is that social media, as a full time exercise, is time intensive. It requires serious time commitments. Brogan put the number at 2 to 2.5 full time employees or an equivalent (which equates to roughly 100 man hours per week) are needed to truly be ‘engaged’ if you are a larger brand. What about for the little guys? It still takes a lot of time but their resources will determine how involved they can get. Fortunately, most agreed that you do not need to be in every social media outlet at all times. If you are not where your customers are then why are you doing it?

• Many in social media are winging it – Well, not completely but pretty darn close. Wildly successful social media practitioners in the corporate world like Whole Foods and Humana admit they are winging it to a degree. They admit this because they know that change in the social media space occurs at such a rapid pace that there is no other way to go. How do you know if something is right unless you give it a shot? Sure there is planning but only after much experimentation to uncover what deserves planning / resources and what doesn’t. In social media it seems to be better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission (that’s another old selling axiom – are you seeing a pattern here between great sales ability and social media?)

• With time comes confidence- Southwest Airlines has been in the social media game for quite some time and their confidence shows. One statement that was indicative of real intentionality regarding social media and specific activities was by Paula Berg, Manager of Emerging Media for Southwest Airlines, who alluded to the social media drills that they conduct to see how quickly they can react to certain situations. I would like to see one of those. She also stated that they put a significant amount of trust in their employees to do the right thing and represent them well unlike recent events like the Domino pizza debacle. Paula’s grasp of the importance and impact of social media to Southwest was very evident and there was a very obvious reason for it; she seems to genuinely love Southwest Airlines. As a result, her activities and presentation of the brand in social media outlets is effective because it is founded on her passion and the passion of those who help.

• Measure it – Sure everyone complains that social media is hard to put metrics to but guess what – you gotta try. Mike Moran emphasized the importance of doing your social media and Internet marketing activities so that people are eventually guided to measurable events. Mike’s point is that Internet marketing isn’t any different than the traditional marketing that has been going on for as long as people have had something to market; it just now takes place on the Internet. As a result, don’t get too hung up on the tools and technology but rather what they achieve. Being cool is one thing but being effective is a complete other area. Being cool makes ‘friends’ while being effective makes careers.

Well, there was a lot more to talk about. The two days were just filled with great information and nice people. Next stop is Boston in September. Are you going to be there?

Another Googler Joins The Obama Administration

The New York Times reports that Google is losing Andrew McLaughlin, Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs, to the Obama administration. He’ll be the administration’s deputy chief technology officer, serving below the recently appointed CTO, Aneesh Chopra.
McLaughlin has been with Google since January 2004. His earlier work included time as VP and Chief Policy [...]

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Google Android To Release 18 Phones by Year End

Google claims we can expect to see at least 18 phones with the Android operating system by year’s end, possibly 20. Which phone carriers they will be on has yet to be determined, according to the New York Times. Currently T-Mobile’s G1 and a phone available in Europe called “Magic” by HTC are the only phones that give Google credit for using their Android OS.

If the Android phones can be released sooner rather than later, it should provide some interesting competition for the summer phone war against the iPhone and Blackberry, among others. The applications available for the Android will play a major factor in consumer’s buying decisions.

This is where there is still some confusion regarding the Android OS. According to the Times, there are three types of Android platforms. Each places different requirements on the handset manufacturers and wireless carriers. The Times broke each of these types out, here is a short summary of them:

1. Obligation Free—Popular Google applications cannot be preloaded on the OS, but device manufacturers are allowed to provide access to as many or as few applications as they wish. This type is free for device manufactures to use.
2. Small Strings—This version encompasses everything above, but manufactures sign a distribution agreement with Google. Google expects 12 to 14 of the 18 phones released this year to use this version.
3. The Google Experience—The actual Google logo appears on these phones, and include a variety of Google applications that cannot be removed by the handset maker or carrier. Additionally, the Android market must remain censor-free. This means that no matter how horrible/distasteful a application available to some users may be, they cannot restrict access to it. Five or six phones are expected to be released with this version.

Are you thinking of switching to a phone with the Android OS?

Time Warner Approves AOL Spin Off

Not so much a revelation, but more of tying-up a loose end. As expected, Time Warner’s board of directors have approved the spin-off of AOL–sans the dial-up division.

Time Warner hopes to conclude the spinoff, which requires an SEC review, by the end of the year. The company also expects to buy back Google’s 5 percent stake as part of completing this transaction but there is no confirmation that Google has agree to the terms or whether a agreed-upon valuation has taken place.

I’m sure AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is licking his chops at the news. Now we’ll get to see what he’s made of.

Pilgrim’s Partners: Is a blogger attacking your company without you knowing? Monitor your online reputation with Andy Beal’s Trackur–try it for free!

Finally, Yahoo 360 To Be Shuttered In July

More than 18 months after first saying that Yahoo 360 would close, the company has finally announced a date: July 13, 2009.
Why the delay? Yahoo’s announcement says they’ve been looking for a way to preserve its users’ content:
“Before we could retire 360, we had to find a sustainable and adequate solution for your personal information. [...]

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Open Letter To Google & The AP: Reveal The Licensing Terms

Discussions between Google and the Associated Press about renewing their content licensing deal continue, I assume, but all’s quiet recently on the negotiation front. I want to disrupt that. It would be wrong in this particular case for both parties to reach a deal where “terms are not disclosed.” The future of [...]

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Google I/O: New Advances In The Searchability of JavaScript and Flash, But Is It Enough?

This week at Google I/O, Google talked a lot about the evolution of the technological capabilities of the web. HTML 5 is ushering in new era of browser-based development and applications. Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, kicked things off with, “My message to you is that this is the beginning of the real win of cloud [...]

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Keyword Research: Listen To Your Customers!

While seo is a part of our daily lives, the process of digging into keyword research hasn’t gotten any easier. Yet, as we know, keyword research is critical to any seo effort. While you may find the process of uncovering and selecting the most appropriate keywords for optimizing your site to be fairly painstaking, it [...]

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How To: Excel at Excel for SEM Applications, Part 1

Ever since Microsoft Excel beat Lotus 1-2-3’s butt to become the world’s preferred spreadsheet solution, it has never looked back. It’s hard for any search marketer to think of a world without Excel. I tell rookies new to the industry to move themselves a tiny bed into cell A1 because they’re going to [...]

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