Bing Logo The Worst Identity of 2009, According To Brand New
Under Consideration’s Brand New division posted their best and worst identities of 2009. Guess who made the top of the list for the worst identity? Bing, bing, bing – you got it, it was Microsoft’s new brand for their search engine – the Bing logo.
Honestly, I am not sure how reputable the [...]
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Guess What? Google Doodles Drive Tons Of Queries & Spammers Know It
CNet News reports that spammers and scammers are exploiting Google Doodles. As you can imagine, there are many people who click on the Google Doodle from the Google home page. Clicking on the logo will trigger a search result in Google. If you look at Google Hot Trends for yesterday, you will [...]
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Obama: Tops For “Who Is Failure” In Google
I’d thought the googlebombs relating to “miserable failure” and “failure” had finally been defused earlier this year. Guess not. Ranking tops in Google right now, the official White House page for US President Barack Obama:
I’ve not heard of any active campaign to linkbomb Obama to the top for these words, so I’m guessing this is [...]
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SEO FAQ That’s Not From The Land Of Unicorns
I guess Derek Powazek isn’t done with attacking seo. Now he’s published an seo FAQ page which, sorry, really doesn’t provide much FAQ about seo. So what the heck. I’ll deconstruct it. Be sure to also read my previous post, An Open Letter To Derek Powazek On The Value Of seo.
What’s [...]
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Product Placements with Nobodies?
Let me guess: you’re looking for a way to get your clients’ products placed in all kinds of media—but you can’t afford any celebrity endorsements. Well, if you’re okay with your products being hawked by nobodies, you might be in luck, according to an AdAge article on Udorse.
Okay, at first it doesn’t sound so appealing: pay everybody and his dog for taking pictures of themselves with your products sounds like a good way to bankrupt yourself. But naturally, these people aren’t pulling in the same endorsement fees the big stars are.
But the real genius of the system isn’t from paying people to be pictured with your product—it’s the implementation. Udorse automatically uses Facebook photos for images with tagged products. Join the system and tag the product, and you’re taken to a short endorsement form to fill out.
Even better, the system isn’t just a flat-fee-for-photo rate—it’s more like affiliate marketing. When your friends take an action associated with the brand/product you endorse (presumably through your photo/tag/profile), then you get paid (via PayPal). Presumably, Udorse also takes a portion of that sale.
Facebook users (and they’re working on this with MySpace and LinkedIn, too) can also search for endorsements by topic.
Because they’re tapping the power of social networks, in some ways this is better than celebrity endorsements. Are you more likely to read a book recommended by a celebrity (yes, even Oprah) or one of your friends? On the other hand, we just said that affiliate marketing via social networks is, and I quote, “craptastic.”
If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go take pictures of myself with . . . every brand I have in the house.
What do you think? Can this system work? Will Udorse be able to get enough brands and members to make it work—and will they get enough of a cut to make it worth their while?
BT/Yahoo Portal Now Powered By … Not Yahoo, Not Bing, Google!
Those with BT broadband in the UK have noticed that the Yahoo/BT portal at bt.yahoo.com has a new search technology provider. You would guess that if Yahoo would replace their own search technology, it would be in exchange for Bing, in light of the recent news about the Bing & Yahoo deal. [...]
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Updated: Twitter Goes Down After Facing DoS Attack
Don’t panic, don’t panic!
Twitter is down and they are working on the issue.
We know you have all kinds of cool things you wanted to tweet today, so feel free to use our comments section instead. 
UPDATE: Twitter is back online and apparently suffered at the hands of a denial of service attack:
On this otherwise happy Thursday morning, Twitter is the target of a denial of service attack. Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users. We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate.
Hmm, you’d think that Twitter would have the infrastructure to repel a DoS attack, I guess not. This serves as a reminder that we should never fully rely on anything web based.
Guess Who Is The Top Global Brand Again? You Got It! Google
Millward Brown released their top “BrandZ” report for 2009 (PDF) and Google has top the list, once again. The main difference this year is that Google’s “brand value” is up 16%, from $86 billion to $100 billion this year.
Here is a chart of the top ten global brands by Millward Brown:
Microsoft ranks number [...]
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What Happened To Google’s ‘Commitment To Transparency’?
It’s no secret that Google — and other search engines — uses a variety of factors to customize search results: your search history, your location, and so forth. If you misspell a word, search engines often guess what you intended to type and show auto-corrected results. But on Google’s search results pages, it’s becoming [...]
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New Twitter “Ads” Appear? My Conspiracy Theory
Remember when Twitter first launched its sidebar ads? Only, Twitter told us all that they weren’t actually ads? Then, guess what, they magically started turning into real ads.
OK, so explain this mysterious “public service tweet” that’s started showing up on Twitter:
Actually, Biz Stone has explained it and he says it’s not an ad, just a way to help users upgrade to a browser that supposedly will ensure a “better Web experience on Twitter.”
<Crosses arms, tilts head>
Really? OK, I’ll buy that these are nothing more than a PSA, but I’ll also give it 6 months before ads start showing up in the exact same place–maybe even linked to the #hashtags you’ve clicked on. Oh wait, you didn’t realize that Twitter made #hashtags clickable, so it could track your interests? 
These types of ads work well on many free apps that Twitter users download to their desktops and, just like Google tests new ads placements before deciding if they should be fully released, I believe Twitter is testing the engagement levels of these ads messages.
