Click Fraud Impacting Small Businesses
So Many Hits, So Few Sales
A Wall Street Journal Cover Story
Click fraud is fast becoming a problem for small businesses advertising online.
Just when pay-per-click advertising made it easier for small businesses to get more bang for their advertising buck, along comes a potential budget drainer: click fraud.
Pay-per-click advertising -- where an advertiser pays only when users click on an ad that links them to the business's Web site -- has fast become an affordable way for small businesses to reach a big audience on search engines and third-party Web sites.
The problem is that not all clicks are made with the intent to potentially buy something -- or with any good intent at all. Sometimes, a competitor will click on a company's ad numerous times to blow the company's advertising budget out the window, or to move the competitive ad off the page, either way, the sponsoring business will have to pay for each of those clicks.
Other times, a Web-page owner, who gets a commission from search engines to host a pay-per-click ad, will repeatedly click on the listing to boost his or her commission.
And many companies don't even know they are the victims of click fraud.
A lot of small businesses "are probably thinking, 'Wow, I am getting all these clicks for people to visit my Web site.' They have no idea they are not buyers," says Gene Fairbrother, lead small-business consultant for the National Association for the Self-Employed, a trade group based in Dallas. One of our members was sponsoring the single keyword phrase: event management software and used thier entire $1,600 PPC budget in only 10 days. Another of our members was sponsoring 3m respirators and used up $3,000 in only one month.
But experts say businesses can mitigate the cost of click fraud by regularly monitoring their pay-per-click accounts for unusual click activity. And there are a host of start-ups popping up that will do the monitoring for them -- some even at no charge.
These so-called click-detection firms rely on clues like numerical addresses (IP addresses) that computers provide when they connect to weed out fraudsters. Small businesses can then take the information to the search companies to request a refund or credit for any fraudulent clicks.
Click Fraud Costs Add Up: The cost of fraudulent clicks can quickly add up. Pay-per-click advertising typically costs anywhere from 10 cents a click to as much as $10, with the average click running about $1 to $2. So if a small business is the victim of hundreds of fraudulent clicks, the financial damage can be steep. And it's not just the small business that could feel the sting.
Click fraud also affects the search engines, whose business models rely heavily on pay-per-click advertising.
Earlier this year, for instance, Google Inc. agreed to pay as much as $90 million in legal fees and advertising credits to settle a click-fraud lawsuit brought by Lane's Gifts, a Texarkana, Ark., retailer, on behalf of a class of advertisers that claimed they were improperly billed for clicks that didn't lead to genuine customers.
Yahoo Inc. also agreed earlier this year to pay roughly $5 million in legal fees and review advertiser click-fraud complaints since 2004 to settle a class-action lawsuit brought last year by private-investigation firm Checkmate Strategic Group Inc. of Delray Beach, Fla. Checkmate had alleged breach of contract and unfair business practices, claiming that Yahoo didn't adequately protect advertisers from click fraud.
On the Watch Both Google and Yahoo say they have systems in place that filter out invalid clicks -- often, by detecting rapid, successive clicking from the same user or IP address -- and that the majority of advertisers don't ever have to deal with click fraud.
Google says thuggery, when it comes to online advertising, has been exaggerated. The company estimates that less than 10% of clicks over its entire system are fraudulent. The problem is manageable, and the search engine has an incentive "to work with our advertisers and make them as happy as possible," says Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google's manager for trust and safety.
John Slade, Yahoo's director of global product management, says that "if our filters say that a click looks problematic, we give it away for free."
Yahoo and Google say they provide businesses with free software that shows if a user who clicked on an advertisement ultimately ended up buying a product or service. If small businesses notice any problems, the search engines say, they should notify them.
"If we find cases that are click fraud, we'll refund it," says Yahoo's Mr. Slade.
"If it's hard to tell, we'll offer" a credit for the cost of the click.
Some in the small-business community complain that the search engines were slow to acknowledge that click fraud was even a problem. The lawsuit settlements have eased many concerns since they brought the problem to light.
But some advertisers still believe that the search engines will never be able to do enough and that click fraud will always be a problem. So what steps can small businesses themselves take to combat click fraud? Marketing experts, small-business advocates and the search engines themselves agree that the most important thing a business can do is to closely monitor its advertising campaigns, especially server log files that show click results.
If, on a given day, click-through traffic is 10 times heavier than usual, then ask a few common-sense questions: Did an article about my business come out? Was there something in the news? "If there is no answer, that might be a good indication that fraud is occurring," says Andrea Peiro, president of the Small Business Technology Institute, a San Jose, Calif., nonprofit that trains small-business owners on technology skills.
Seek Outside Help Many small-business owners, however, don't have the time or inclination to sift through website logs. And that's where click-detection firms come in. Among them: Click Forensics LLC, of San Antonio; Click Defense Inc., Fort Collins, Colo.; ClickDetective Ltd., of the United Kingdom; WhosClickingWho, San Jose, Calif.; and ClickFacts, of San Francisco.
Click Forensics provides a click-fraud monitoring service free of charge to businesses whose online advertising campaigns generate fewer than 100,000 clicks a month. The company, which makes the bulk of its revenue providing the service for a fee to large advertisers, says it uses special technology to detect every click to an advertiser's Web site and tracks the visit through to the exit page.
In return for providing the service, Click Forensics uses click-fraud data to publish a monthly Click Fraud Index, which measures the frequency of click fraud in online advertising campaigns. Another firm, ClickFacts, has developed proprietary auditing software to help advertisers detect click fraud. It charges small businesses about 1% of the cost of a click for its service. For instance, "if you're buying clicks that are $1 a click and you spend $100 for 100 clicks, we will charge you one dollar," says Mikhail Ledvich, ClickFacts' chief strategy officer.
Jim Hill, owner of SportHill, a Eugene, Ore., retailer of athletic gear, was only marginally aware of click fraud until several months ago -- when his advertising budget for a new campaign based on one word search was depleted in a day as a result of incessant clicks. Although he lost only a couple of hundred dollars, Mr. Hill says his faith in the advertising model was shaken. "It's definitely been a drag on my enthusiasm for advertising on the Internet," he says.
In business for 20 years, Mr. Hill says he has relied on the Internet over the past five or six years to expand his clientele. So after the click-fraud incident, Mr. Hill decided to start monitoring his advertising campaigns using ClickFacts' service. "It's happening every month, and we're tracking it," he says. Mr. Hill says between 7% and 15% of his clicks on any given day are fraudulent -- a small but significant amount, and one that easily could have gone unnoticed.
In a few months' time, he plans to add up the losses and ask the search engines that run his ads, including Yahoo and Google, for a refund. Other Options Some experts say the best way to fight click fraud is to avoid advertising where it tends to happen most. That, they say, means listing ads only on search engines, and not on third-party ad networks like Google's popular AdSense, which allows external sites to host ads and share profits.
They say a third-party site can be driven by greed to use a software program or pay cheap labor in developing nations to repeatedly click on ads in order to get more commissions from clicks. "Generally, where we see a high volume of click fraud is not [in] Google directly but those other affiliates," says Jim Collins, chief executive of Affinity Internet, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., firm that advises small businesses on ad campaigns.
Google says that there's no greater chance of fraud if your ad runs on a third-party site, and that if anything, a small-business owner might lose out on valuable exposure. "Making decisions about where to invest your advertising dollars out of fear is not the best way to set up your campaign," says Mr. Ghosemajumder.
Other experts, meantime, point to potential new advertising pricing models that may make it harder to commit click fraud in the first place. Search engines are studying one method, called cost-per-action advertising, where an advertiser pays only when a click-through leads to a product purchase or sales lead. "It's safer for the advertiser, but then it's more risky for the search engines" because they would likely lose easy revenue from simple clicks, says Alexander Tuzhilin, professor of information systems at New York University's Stern School of Business. If such a system were adopted, he says, the loss of revenue from pay-per-click could prompt search engines to charge more for cost-per-action ads.
Yahoo says search engines are looking at ways to give advertisers more choice, but it's not anything the company can talk about in any detail right now. Google's Mr. Ghosemajumder says, "We're always looking for new ways to provide effective and useful features to advertisers, publishers, and users. As part of these efforts we are currently testing a cost-per-action pricing model to give advertisers more flexibility and provide publishers another way to earn revenue through AdSense."
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Google Radio ?
The best search engine and quite possibly the most impressive company in the world is moving into the dead medium of radio ?
Here the Latest on Google Radio !
Google and Clear Channel strike new traditional media advertising deal. A new radio advertising partnership has been formed between Google and Clear Channel Communications.
Google will place radio advertising for its pay per click Google AdWords customers on all 675 radio stations owned of Clear Channel, the US' top radio station owner (not by any means the best, only the largest of the modern day radio vultures).
Google will begin selling radio advertisements across all of the stations of Clear Channel Communications, the No.1 radio station owner in the US, at the end of June, the companies said on Sunday.
The recent tests of Google radio that launched in beta with Clear Channel Detroit stations has allowed both sides to work the kinks out and roll the program in full nationwide.
Google has been working for months to expand its ad sales operation into traditional media like newspapers, radio and television. To do so, it needs traditional media companies to allow it to sell some of their ads, and it had seemed to be making little progress in radio.
But the partnership with Clear Channel represents a step forward for Google. The deal will run for several years and will give Google access to just under 5 percent of Clear Channel's commercial time.
That will include 30-second spots on all of Clear Channel's 675 stations during all programs and all times of the day, executives at both companies said in interviews on Sunday.
The companies did not disclose the financial details of the arrangement, except to say that Clear Channel would receive the majority of the ad revenue. "It represents an opportunity to put what is arguably the hottest sales organization in the world to work selling our unsold radio inventory, and we're very excited about that," Clear Channel chief executive John Hogan said.
Hogan said Google would bring new advertisers to his stations and would work with those companies rather than with Clear Channel's existing advertisers. But, he said, the Google advertisers would have access to premium inventory -- in contrast to some of Google's deals with newspapers that allow Google to sell only leftover ad space. And, he left the door open for a broader deal. "If it is a success, we would want to replicate it and expand it," Hogan said.
Google has already signed on to sell ads for 800 stations nationwide, but they tend to be in smaller markets, said Tim Armstrong, Google's president for North American advertising and commerce. "Everybody from top to bottom at Google is excited about this partnership," Armstrong said.
The deal will most likely stir more fear among the media executives who are wary of Google's encroachment. Google may have an easier time becoming dominant in radio because of the importance of local advertisers there, said Gene DeWitt, chairman of DeWitt Media Strategies, a firm that buys ads. "Most mediums tend to be driven by national advertisers, but not radio," DeWitt said. "It's the national advertising community that has kind of been keeping Google at arm's length.
These advertisers -- on radio -- may very likely be more willing and interested."
DeWitt said radio buying and selling generally had the most cumbersome processes.
Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt said last year that he planned to eventually have 1,000 employees working in the company's radio unit. Google paid as much as US$1.24 billion to acquire dMarc Broadcasting early last year and used that company's systems to expand its AdSense for Audio sales system to include radio capabilities. Advertisers log on to the AdSense Web site, choose what type of ad they want and submit their bids.
Google executives have said they hope to expand the offerings on their AdSense site to include all types of advertising, online and offline. On Friday, Google agreed to pay US$3.1 billion to acquire DoubleClick, a company with display ad knowledge that Google hopes will help it move beyond the text and search ads that generate most of its revenue.
Google also recently started selling ads for the 125 national satellite channels on EchoStar Communications' DISH Network. It is also testing ad sales for papers like the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and newspaper chains.
No mention was made of the declining return on investment figures that radio advertising has generated in recent years.
Also no mention was made of the declining radio audience and consistent market share losses that are cannibalizing radio's reach, impact, and future as satellite radio audience numbers rapidly gain and sales of new personal music programming devices such as the: Ipod, Zune, Rio, Sony PSP, etc. continue to skyrocket.
In this new media world: Its all about User Controlled Content ...Not Advertising !
Is Traditional Radio Dead ? Yes ... and the real question has become simply a matter of when.
Many senior level marketing and advertising executives have been wagering assets as to the actual date of traditional radio's impending death.
The best search engine and quite possibly the most impressive company in the world is moving into the dead medium of radio ?
Here the Latest on Google Radio !
Google and Clear Channel strike new traditional media advertising deal. A new radio advertising partnership has been formed between Google and Clear Channel Communications.
Google will place radio advertising for its pay per click Google AdWords customers on all 675 radio stations owned of Clear Channel, the US' top radio station owner (not by any means the best, only the largest of the modern day radio vultures).
Google will begin selling radio advertisements across all of the stations of Clear Channel Communications, the No.1 radio station owner in the US, at the end of June, the companies said on Sunday.
The recent tests of Google radio that launched in beta with Clear Channel Detroit stations has allowed both sides to work the kinks out and roll the program in full nationwide.
Google has been working for months to expand its ad sales operation into traditional media like newspapers, radio and television. To do so, it needs traditional media companies to allow it to sell some of their ads, and it had seemed to be making little progress in radio.
But the partnership with Clear Channel represents a step forward for Google. The deal will run for several years and will give Google access to just under 5 percent of Clear Channel's commercial time.
That will include 30-second spots on all of Clear Channel's 675 stations during all programs and all times of the day, executives at both companies said in interviews on Sunday.
The companies did not disclose the financial details of the arrangement, except to say that Clear Channel would receive the majority of the ad revenue. "It represents an opportunity to put what is arguably the hottest sales organization in the world to work selling our unsold radio inventory, and we're very excited about that," Clear Channel chief executive John Hogan said.
Hogan said Google would bring new advertisers to his stations and would work with those companies rather than with Clear Channel's existing advertisers. But, he said, the Google advertisers would have access to premium inventory -- in contrast to some of Google's deals with newspapers that allow Google to sell only leftover ad space. And, he left the door open for a broader deal. "If it is a success, we would want to replicate it and expand it," Hogan said.
Google has already signed on to sell ads for 800 stations nationwide, but they tend to be in smaller markets, said Tim Armstrong, Google's president for North American advertising and commerce. "Everybody from top to bottom at Google is excited about this partnership," Armstrong said.
The deal will most likely stir more fear among the media executives who are wary of Google's encroachment. Google may have an easier time becoming dominant in radio because of the importance of local advertisers there, said Gene DeWitt, chairman of DeWitt Media Strategies, a firm that buys ads. "Most mediums tend to be driven by national advertisers, but not radio," DeWitt said. "It's the national advertising community that has kind of been keeping Google at arm's length.
These advertisers -- on radio -- may very likely be more willing and interested."
DeWitt said radio buying and selling generally had the most cumbersome processes.
Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt said last year that he planned to eventually have 1,000 employees working in the company's radio unit. Google paid as much as US$1.24 billion to acquire dMarc Broadcasting early last year and used that company's systems to expand its AdSense for Audio sales system to include radio capabilities. Advertisers log on to the AdSense Web site, choose what type of ad they want and submit their bids.
Google executives have said they hope to expand the offerings on their AdSense site to include all types of advertising, online and offline. On Friday, Google agreed to pay US$3.1 billion to acquire DoubleClick, a company with display ad knowledge that Google hopes will help it move beyond the text and search ads that generate most of its revenue.
Google also recently started selling ads for the 125 national satellite channels on EchoStar Communications' DISH Network. It is also testing ad sales for papers like the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and newspaper chains.
No mention was made of the declining return on investment figures that radio advertising has generated in recent years.
Also no mention was made of the declining radio audience and consistent market share losses that are cannibalizing radio's reach, impact, and future as satellite radio audience numbers rapidly gain and sales of new personal music programming devices such as the: Ipod, Zune, Rio, Sony PSP, etc. continue to skyrocket.
In this new media world: Its all about User Controlled Content ...Not Advertising !
Is Traditional Radio Dead ? Yes ... and the real question has become simply a matter of when.
Many senior level marketing and advertising executives have been wagering assets as to the actual date of traditional radio's impending death.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Advertising Age Releases New Search Marketing Fact Pack.
This new study from Ad Age is packed with great overview information and insight on the major search engines, keywords and keyword targeting, and many recent SEO/SEM Studies.
Search Marketing Facts included:
Harris Interactive Reports:
80% of ALL Internet Traffic Now Begins at a Search Engine.
DoubleClick Reports:
41% of web users use search for simple navigation, typing a query to find a brand rather than typing a URL directly into their browser.
This new study from Ad Age is packed with great overview information and insight on the major search engines, keywords and keyword targeting, and many recent SEO/SEM Studies.
Search Marketing Facts included:
Harris Interactive Reports:
80% of ALL Internet Traffic Now Begins at a Search Engine.
DoubleClick Reports:
41% of web users use search for simple navigation, typing a query to find a brand rather than typing a URL directly into their browser.
Download Adage Search Marketing Fact Pack Here --- Enjoy the Research.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Yahoo! Opens Up oneSearch to Mobile Publishers
New Yahoo! Mobile Publisher Services will Broaden the Powerful Yahoo! oneSearch(TM) Experience for Consumers
SUNNYVALE, CA based Yahoo! and the new Yahoo oneSearch has reinvented the mobile search experience for consumers, and today Yahoo! will open it up to publishers through Yahoo! Mobile Publishers Services. This will extend the range of content consumers will be able to easily discover and access using Yahoo! oneSearch on their mobile phones.
"We believe Yahoo! oneSearch finally gives consumers what they want - instant answers and not just links to Websites," said Marco Boerries, executive vice president of connected life, Yahoo!. "But this is only the beginning. Opening Yahoo! oneSearch to the universe of mobile Internet content and services provided by other publishers will give consumers even more instant answers and information right at their fingertips."
Yahoo! Mobile Publishers Services will allow publishers to include their exclusive content and virtual tour software clips in Yahoo! These new services include:
-- Yahoo! Mobile Site Submit: that allows mobile sites to increase exposure and reach with mobile Web sites consumers.
-- Yahoo! Mobile Media Directory that makes it easier for consumers to find mobile media content, such as ringtones, games, 360 video tour and applications
-- Yahoo! Mobile Content Engine - will add to the types of content, such as classifieds, costa rica retirement real estate listings, philadelphia apartments so that mobile searchers can easily find relevant sites on their mobile phone.
-- Yahoo! oneSearch now accessible on more than 85 percent of mobile phones through the mobile Web in the U.S.* and is also available through the gamma version of Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0. It is designed to make mobile searching as quick as possible for consumers by listing relevant search results right on the page such as news headlines, images, business listings and more as well as easy navigation to other websites. Yahoo! oneSearch will also roll out internationally with additional country and language versions over the coming months.
For more info visit: Yahoo One Search -- or try Yahoo Mobile Search on Your Mobile Phone
New Yahoo! Mobile Publisher Services will Broaden the Powerful Yahoo! oneSearch(TM) Experience for Consumers
SUNNYVALE, CA based Yahoo! and the new Yahoo oneSearch has reinvented the mobile search experience for consumers, and today Yahoo! will open it up to publishers through Yahoo! Mobile Publishers Services. This will extend the range of content consumers will be able to easily discover and access using Yahoo! oneSearch on their mobile phones.
"We believe Yahoo! oneSearch finally gives consumers what they want - instant answers and not just links to Websites," said Marco Boerries, executive vice president of connected life, Yahoo!. "But this is only the beginning. Opening Yahoo! oneSearch to the universe of mobile Internet content and services provided by other publishers will give consumers even more instant answers and information right at their fingertips."
Yahoo! Mobile Publishers Services will allow publishers to include their exclusive content and virtual tour software clips in Yahoo! These new services include:
-- Yahoo! Mobile Site Submit: that allows mobile sites to increase exposure and reach with mobile Web sites consumers.
-- Yahoo! Mobile Media Directory that makes it easier for consumers to find mobile media content, such as ringtones, games, 360 video tour and applications
-- Yahoo! Mobile Content Engine - will add to the types of content, such as classifieds, costa rica retirement real estate listings, philadelphia apartments so that mobile searchers can easily find relevant sites on their mobile phone.
-- Yahoo! oneSearch now accessible on more than 85 percent of mobile phones through the mobile Web in the U.S.* and is also available through the gamma version of Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0. It is designed to make mobile searching as quick as possible for consumers by listing relevant search results right on the page such as news headlines, images, business listings and more as well as easy navigation to other websites. Yahoo! oneSearch will also roll out internationally with additional country and language versions over the coming months.
For more info visit: Yahoo One Search -- or try Yahoo Mobile Search on Your Mobile Phone
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Online Advertising to Surpass Television as Number One Advertising Medium.
New Advertising and Media Forecasts predict that within five years online advertising will surpass the television industry as the largest and most popular advertising medium.
As the six major TV networks align their fall programming lineups and begin making their upfront sales pitches, the reception from large agencies has been frigid.
Insiders report that Internet is making a stronger impact and influence with buyers who plan on shifting more budget into online mediums away from Television, radio, print, billboards, and direct mail. Advertising allocations are being shifted to the Internet as marketers are requiring more immediate and personal contact with their target market. The web is becoming a more attractive advertising delivery system.
Internet advertising is projected to grow to 20% of all ad spending by 2010 as more marketing money is moving to the Web. Network TV advertising is considered less powerful as cable fragmentation, high-def programming, TiVo and media on demand vehicles are eroding television's viewing audience.
In short, TV is not being watched by as many consumers as in years past.
The couch potato is quickly being replaced by the web surfer.
The major search engines led by Google are launching Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed vehicles that allow advertisers to display ads in appropriate content and feed vehicles, this is eliminating waste and increasing impact as advertising messages can be more aligned and targeted with in-market media programming.
Web advertising is the most relevant advertising medium.
Organic/Natural Search Engine Optimization the most effective and powerful foundational element within successful web advertising efforts.
Key Organic Search Engine Optimization Facts:
New Advertising and Media Forecasts predict that within five years online advertising will surpass the television industry as the largest and most popular advertising medium.
As the six major TV networks align their fall programming lineups and begin making their upfront sales pitches, the reception from large agencies has been frigid.
Insiders report that Internet is making a stronger impact and influence with buyers who plan on shifting more budget into online mediums away from Television, radio, print, billboards, and direct mail. Advertising allocations are being shifted to the Internet as marketers are requiring more immediate and personal contact with their target market. The web is becoming a more attractive advertising delivery system.
Internet advertising is projected to grow to 20% of all ad spending by 2010 as more marketing money is moving to the Web. Network TV advertising is considered less powerful as cable fragmentation, high-def programming, TiVo and media on demand vehicles are eroding television's viewing audience.
In short, TV is not being watched by as many consumers as in years past.
The couch potato is quickly being replaced by the web surfer.
The major search engines led by Google are launching Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed vehicles that allow advertisers to display ads in appropriate content and feed vehicles, this is eliminating waste and increasing impact as advertising messages can be more aligned and targeted with in-market media programming.
Web advertising is the most relevant advertising medium.
Organic/Natural Search Engine Optimization the most effective and powerful foundational element within successful web advertising efforts.
Key Organic Search Engine Optimization Facts:
- Keyword search is the 2nd most popular online activity, rapidly approaching the popularity of email retrieval.
90% of all new website visitors are delivered by a major search engine and/or directory.- 98% of all keyword search activity results are powered by the big 4 search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
- Keyword search results on Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL are all determined by a search engine spider and/or robot crawler.
- Recent internet marketing studies confirm that keyword searchers prefer the organic results at a 6 to 1 ratio vs. pay-per-click sponsored search advertising listings.
Also online advertising medium continues to evolve and grow. The next logical extension for online advertising is growth for advertisers within the blogging industry as blogs allow advertisers to tie their advertising messages into topic-centric blogs that are more content relevant than the often; bland, dated, and waste-filled programming and content of: TV, print, radio, etc.
Advertisiers also realize that media consumption is changing daily and broadcast mediums are not as popular or as effective in reaching huge pockets of consumers as they once were and the costs associated (cost per ratings point) have increased dramatically in recent years. These same television campaigns that are losing impact and reach with consumers are now more expensive as TV rates continue to rise.
Editor's Aside:
It is especially painful to watch the domestic automakers continue to pour millions into TV advertising campaigns as they lose billions per quarter. Here in Metro Detroit as thousands of our colleagues, relatives, neighbors, and friends lose their auto jobs, retirement benefits, pensions, healthcare coverage or all of the above, its becomes quite the bitter pill too swallow when the big three automakers continue to pour hundreds of millions of fresh dollars into redundant television advertising campaigns that are not driving product sales.
Can the executive teams at the big three ever seriously adjust to advertising market conditions? Do they truly understand that television viewing levels and newspaper readership levels are declining? Television is not having the impact it once did with prospective car and truck buyers. The vehicle buying public is no longer watching or responding to the redundant television advertising campaigns executed by the big three.
Once again the car makers are actively negotiating their upfront television buys seeking to pour billions more into the televsioins medium throughout this decade. Quite ironic to consider that the same executive decision making teams that have handed sales market share to foreign automakers and responsible for their corporate turnaround plans are the very same groups signing off on TV heavy ad campaigns.
The latest reports show that the automotive manufacturers continue to lead the charge into TV spending the most on the television medium. This is simply another indication that the executive teams at the big three are stuck in the past. The domestic automakers need to reeducate and adjust their marketing efforts rapidly and embrace the new global paradigm sooner rather than later.
Monday, March 12, 2007
MSN Search Director to Leave Microsoft
Another Microsoft search executive is rumored to be leaving the company. The latest news broke in early March 2007 as Microsoft continues to struggle to compete with Google in Internet search.
According to Reuters news service, the Microsoft executive most responsible for closing the gap on Web search with Google is leaving MSN. Chris Payne, corporate vice president of the new Windows Live Search, is leaving Microsoft to start his own company in Seattle, said the source, who asked not to be identified. Microsoft representatives declined to comment.
The news comes at a time when Microsoft continues to struggle for share of the keyword search market against Google. Microsoft has overhauled MSN and related search products several times in the last two years with many new looks and features.
Google still handles over 3 billion keyword search queries monthly, while Microsoft averages just over 700 million searches a month according to the latest comScore numbers.
Microsoft has improved its share of the keyword search pie however the market share increases have only been marginal.
Mr. Payne, who rejoined Microsoft in 2001 after a three-year stint at Amazon.com, played a key role in persuading the company to develop its own search engine instead of relying on Yahoo to power MSN search results. Prior to Amazon, Payne spent eight years at Microsoft.
Microsoft's failure to recognize the keyword search medium and late start in the search medium has kept MSN at a huge disadvantage versus Google and Yahoo. Those companies made billions selling advertising tied to keyword search results while Microsoft scrambled to build a search business model of its own.
Payne could become the second executive from Microsoft's Internet arm in the past week planning to leave the company. Blake Irving, a Microsoft vice president who oversees the new MSN AdCenter that sells ads next to search results, also plans to retire from Microsoft.
Another Microsoft search executive is rumored to be leaving the company. The latest news broke in early March 2007 as Microsoft continues to struggle to compete with Google in Internet search.
According to Reuters news service, the Microsoft executive most responsible for closing the gap on Web search with Google is leaving MSN. Chris Payne, corporate vice president of the new Windows Live Search, is leaving Microsoft to start his own company in Seattle, said the source, who asked not to be identified. Microsoft representatives declined to comment.
The news comes at a time when Microsoft continues to struggle for share of the keyword search market against Google. Microsoft has overhauled MSN and related search products several times in the last two years with many new looks and features.
Google still handles over 3 billion keyword search queries monthly, while Microsoft averages just over 700 million searches a month according to the latest comScore numbers.
Microsoft has improved its share of the keyword search pie however the market share increases have only been marginal.
Mr. Payne, who rejoined Microsoft in 2001 after a three-year stint at Amazon.com, played a key role in persuading the company to develop its own search engine instead of relying on Yahoo to power MSN search results. Prior to Amazon, Payne spent eight years at Microsoft.
Microsoft's failure to recognize the keyword search medium and late start in the search medium has kept MSN at a huge disadvantage versus Google and Yahoo. Those companies made billions selling advertising tied to keyword search results while Microsoft scrambled to build a search business model of its own.
Payne could become the second executive from Microsoft's Internet arm in the past week planning to leave the company. Blake Irving, a Microsoft vice president who oversees the new MSN AdCenter that sells ads next to search results, also plans to retire from Microsoft.
Friday, February 16, 2007
"SEO Friendly Content Management Systems" ... Don't Believe the Hype !
In recent weeks many of our clients and associates have been receiving an onslaught of emails, offers, and unsolicited marketing messages boasting of the search engine friendliness of new CMS Tools.
In reviewing these new CMS Tools and working with several of the most popular CMS Tools on a regular basis, we have yet to find a truly "SEO Friendly" CMS Tool. The marketing claims and "PR Hype" touting the SEO capabilities of CMS Tools is most deceiving and spinning out of control of late.
If you are considering moving a website to a new CMS Tool understand that despite all of the sales rhetoric from CMS developers, a vast majority of CMS tools lack core SEO principles in their design structure and thus still require the highly specialized dynamic-database SEO skills sets of a proven search engine optimization firm. If you plan on moving your website to a new CMS platform, also plan on engaging a skilled organic SEO company to fully optimize the dynamic website and CMS powered page templates and url renderings in order to achieve and maintain keyword ranking success in the search engines.
The list of qualified dynamic, database-driven search engine optimization specialists is actually quite small. Only a very tight circle of less than (10) established seo firms have the technical skill sets required to execute and provide the complex database optimization skill sets required to "open-up" the content(s) of CMS powered websites to the major search engine spiders.
Here are just a couple of topline SEO requirements, proven SEO principles and SEO Best Practices that many CMS Tools have overlooked and fail to accomodate:
SEO Shortcomings of Many Content Management Systems - CMS Tools.
URL Naming Conventions: many CMS Tools produce URLs that are either query-laiden or meaningless. Why even publish a page containing: ID=, Session IDs, or using generic URL names like department8.xml ? The URLs naming convention should at least attempt to indicate the content theme of the page whenever possible. Many CMS Tools populate pages with meaningless url names. If the only difference in your URL names is a number you are in for a long, steady, uphill climb, and roller-coaster results in the search engines.
W3C HTML Code Compliance and Validation: although many web and CMS developers beg to differ, it is essential that code validation principles and standards be adhered to for favorable Search Engine Placement. Invalid HTML page code is a contributing factor and can be directly tied to both securing and maintaining strong natural keyword placement. Many CMS tools publish error-filled page code that chokes spiders and potentially interrupts full page delivery.
"Loose" Content Management Systems: that refresh often can create tremendous confusion with search engines, resulting in "Content Trust" and site/URL fluctuation factors that prevent websites from attaining top keyword placement. Loose CMS Tools that "refresh" often can miminize search exposure and reduce reach on qualified, in-market users searching on keywords that define the company and brands. CMS powered websites programmed to dynamically update and change regularly are 'Red Flags' to the search engine spiders. Loose CMS Tools often leave "backdoor links" that conflict and compete with many "front-door" links on the same site.
Heavy JavaScript & Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Issues: many CMS Tools use layer after layer of repetitive Javascript code that turns off spiders and weighs down pages making them very heavy and difficult to index. Search engine spiders have to perform olympic feats plowing their way through the redundant Javacript calls and heavy CMS produced page code. The endless JavaScript errors make content location more diificult for spiders, inflate the size of the pages making the rendered page far larger than necessary and any foundational code errors, are being be multiplied by the sum total of pages, and as spiders struggle to crawl and dig deeper (as programmed) they encounter multiple levels of unoptimized, CMS-powered, error-plagued code. Many CMS Tools fail to properly define styles and guidelines in a single reference point thus eliminating redundant page attribute definitions that prevent spiders from quickly locating, crawling, and storing Relevant Content.
These are only a limited number of the topline site design elements that often keep CMS powered websites from performing well in the search engines on in-market keyword search phrases that drive new business. Conducting a comprehensive keyword analysis with (real search data from Google) PRIOR to converting to a new content management system or CMS Tools is also a great idea.
Marketing Managers, IT Directors, Webmasters, and Internet Publishers must consider proven Search Engine Optimization principles and SEO Best Practices before making any moves to convert to Content Management Systems and CMS Tools.
If you plan on moving your website to a new CMS powered dynamic platform, also plan on engaging a proven dynamic database-powered site optimization firm to fully optimize the CMS-powered website in odrer to secure and maintain premium keyword positions on popular keywords that best define your industry.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Looking For More Local Search Exposure ? Create a Free Google Maps Account.
Business Owners Seeking Exposure on Geo-Specific Keywords and Local Search need to register for a free Google Maps Account. Google Maps enhances search results pages by bringing in additional business listings near the top of many local / geo specific keyword searches.
To have your business listed for free visit: Google Maps
Business display ads can be created for free. Your business listing will appear when people are searching on Google Maps for the products and services you offer.
Google Maps will make it easier for local searchers to find your business and supporting inforamtion about your products, services, and best brands like: miller fall protection. Also Google Maps can present coupons to reward loyal customers or attract new ones.
Google Maps can help any business a one location specialty shop to multi-location national chains we highly recommend Google Maps for any business seeking more exposure in local markets.
Business Owners Seeking Exposure on Geo-Specific Keywords and Local Search need to register for a free Google Maps Account. Google Maps enhances search results pages by bringing in additional business listings near the top of many local / geo specific keyword searches.
To have your business listed for free visit: Google Maps
Business display ads can be created for free. Your business listing will appear when people are searching on Google Maps for the products and services you offer.
Google Maps will make it easier for local searchers to find your business and supporting inforamtion about your products, services, and best brands like: miller fall protection. Also Google Maps can present coupons to reward loyal customers or attract new ones.
Google Maps can help any business a one location specialty shop to multi-location national chains we highly recommend Google Maps for any business seeking more exposure in local markets.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
So you wanna work at Google?
Think you have what it takes to get a job at the world's hottest tech company?
Here's the do's and don'ts List for Your Interview at Google.
article from fortune
Do
1. Go to Stanford, Harvard, or MIT. though Google has relaxed its GPA standards of late - and now considers candidates with less than a 3.7 average - be prepared to discuss any B's you may have earned.
2. Stress how well you get along with others. Unlike some companies that tolerate lone wolves, Google (Charts) wants team players who'll gladly work cheek by jowl with their teammates.
3. Talk about your many diverse interests ("I fly-fish! And love chess! And breed water buffalo!") Narrow interests or skills are a big time turnoff at Google.
4. Be prepared to get up at a whiteboard and write software code during your interview. Brush up on "bit twiddling," by the way. Really.
Don't
1. Joke about the whole Don't Be Evil thing. Googlers take their goodness very seriously.
2. Go on and on in your interview about the doctoral project that you didn't bother building or trying to commercialize. Google likes doers, not thinkers
3. Talk about money. they'll think you're just trying to get rich. Even though you probably are, it's something you're not supposed to discuss out loud
4. Mention the competition. in its eyes, everything at Google is sui generis Other than programming languages, if it wasn't invented at Google, it's not worth discussing.
Think you have what it takes to get a job at the world's hottest tech company?
Here's the do's and don'ts List for Your Interview at Google.
article from fortune
Do
1. Go to Stanford, Harvard, or MIT. though Google has relaxed its GPA standards of late - and now considers candidates with less than a 3.7 average - be prepared to discuss any B's you may have earned.
2. Stress how well you get along with others. Unlike some companies that tolerate lone wolves, Google (Charts) wants team players who'll gladly work cheek by jowl with their teammates.
3. Talk about your many diverse interests ("I fly-fish! And love chess! And breed water buffalo!") Narrow interests or skills are a big time turnoff at Google.
4. Be prepared to get up at a whiteboard and write software code during your interview. Brush up on "bit twiddling," by the way. Really.
Don't
1. Joke about the whole Don't Be Evil thing. Googlers take their goodness very seriously.
2. Go on and on in your interview about the doctoral project that you didn't bother building or trying to commercialize. Google likes doers, not thinkers
3. Talk about money. they'll think you're just trying to get rich. Even though you probably are, it's something you're not supposed to discuss out loud
4. Mention the competition. in its eyes, everything at Google is sui generis Other than programming languages, if it wasn't invented at Google, it's not worth discussing.
Google Wins Forbes Top 100 Companies to Work For
Spend A Day Inside Googleplex
great Fortune article
Google is No. 1: Search and enjoy
The people are brilliant. The perks are epic.
But can Google's founders build a culture that doesn't depend on the stock price?
By Adam Lashinsky, Fortune senior writer
Mountain View, Calif. -- At Google it always comes back to the food.
For human resources director Stacy Sullivan, it's the Irish oatmeal with fresh berries at the Plymouth Rock Café, located in building 1550 near the "people operations" group. "I sometimes dream about it," she says. "Seriously." As a seven-year veteran of the company, engineer Jen Fitzpatrick has developed a more sophisticated palate, preferring the raw bar at the Basque-themed Café Pintxo, a tapas joint in building 47. Her mother is thrilled she's eating well at work: "She came in for lunch once and thanked the chef," says Fitzpatrick. Joshua Bloch, an expert on the Java software language, swears by the roast quail at haute eatery Café Seven, professing it to be the best meal on campus. "It's uniformly excellent," he raves.
I found that to be a gross distortion of the facts. The roasted black bass with parsley pesto and bread crumbs had a delicate flavor, superior mouth feel, and a light yet satisfying finish that seemed to me unmatched among the 11 free gourmet cafeterias Google runs at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.
Top 5 of Fortune's Top 100 Employers List
1. Google
2. Genentech
3. Wegmans Food Markets
4. Container Store
5. Whole Foods Market
Even the vast buffet that is the tech company's campus, however, cannot obscure the obstacles the company is facing. Says co-founder Sergey Brin: "I mean, the cafés have always been pretty healthy, but the snacks are not, and the efforts to fix that have been remarkably challenging." Though company lore has it that Brin and co-founder Larry Page believe no worker should be more than 150 feet from a food source, clearly not all food is equal. "A lot of people like their M&Ms. But the easy access is actually what's bad for them," he says.
Life inside Google
Of course, when it comes to America's new Best Company to Work For, the food is, well, just the appetizer. At Google you can do your laundry; drop off your dry cleaning; get an oil change, then have your car washed; work out in the gym; attend subsidized exercise classes; get a massage; study Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, and French; and ask a personal concierge to arrange dinner reservations. Naturally you can get haircuts onsite. Want to buy a hybrid car? The company will give you $5,000 toward that environmentally friendly end. Care to refer a friend to work at Google? Google would like that too, and it'll give you a $2,000 reward. Just have a new baby? Congratulations! Your employer will reimburse you for up to $500 in takeout food to ease your first four weeks at home. Looking to make new friends? Attend a weekly TGIF party, where there's usually a band playing. Five onsite doctors are available to give you a checkup, free of charge.
Many Silicon Valley companies provide shuttle-bus transportation from area train stations. Google operates free, Wi-Fi-enabled coaches from five Bay Area locations. Lactation rooms are common in corporate America; Google provides breast pumps so that nursing moms don't have to haul the equipment to work. Work is such a cozy place that it's sometimes difficult for Google employees to leave the office, which is precisely how the company justifies the expenses, none of which it breaks out of its administrative costs.
Even people who don't work here like to loiter: The company has become a stop on the world lecture circuit, attracting the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. "You've got to ask yourself why these people are coming here," says 24-year-old engineer Neha Narula. "I think they come here to be energized by the people at Google."
The people at Google, it should be stated, almost universally see themselves as the most interesting people on the planet. Googlers tend to be happy-go-lucky on the outside, but Type A at their core. Ask one what he or she is doing, and it's never "selling ads" or "writing code." No, they're on a quest "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." That's from the actual mission statement, by the way, which employees can and do cite with cloying frequency.
The perks of being a Googler
It's easy for Google's people to be energized, though, when their company is so stinking rich that it continues to ooze cash even while lavishing benefits on its staff. Just eight years out of the garage, Google will surpass $10 billion in sales for 2006. Its operating margins are a stunning 35%, and it ended the third quarter with $10.4 billion in cash. Its stock has soared from $85 a little over two years ago to a recent $483. All of which raises the question: Is Google's culture the cause of its success or merely a result? Put another way: Is Google a great place to work because its stock is at $483, or is its stock at $483 because it's a great place to work?
I'm sitting on a heated toilet in my pajamas. I'm in engineering building 40 at Google on "pajama day," and directly in front of me, attached to the inside door of the toilet stall, is a one-page flier, printed on plain white paper, titled "Testing on the Toilet, Episode 21." The document, which is designed to prod the brains of engineers who test software code, explores such subjects as "lode coverage" and reminds engineers that even biobreaks need not interrupt their work.
Presuming that ones's stay here isn't sufficient to process that lesson, the sheet provides a link to two internal Web sites, http://tott/ (for Testing on the Toilet) and http://botw/ (Bug of the Week). Not being a software engineer, I understand little of what I'm reading. Yet it reminds me of the first two sentences of the now famous founders' letter Page and Brin distributed to prospective Google shareholders before the company's 2004 IPO: "Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one." Mission accomplished.
In its earliest days Google was more or less a postdoctoral extension of the Stanford computer science department, from which Page, Brin, and a goodly number of their pals sprang. To this day, they jam employees into shared offices and cubicles and would do so even if Google had more space - because Page, a student of "office flow," likes the idea of recreating that university environment in which he and Brin wrote the first Google search engine.
The two hired a chef early on because it beat heating up ramen noodles.
It wasn't hard for Google's founders to break the rules of a traditional company - they had never worked fulltime at one. Stacy Sullivan, Google's first human resources executive, recalls that the founders came to her on her second day on the job, in late 1999, and suggested that the company convert a conference room into a childcare center. Google employees had a sum total of two children at the time. Though Sullivan eventually convinced them that, because of zoning issues, the conference room was not a proper child-care facility, "they looked at me and said, 'Why not?' "
Google's employment roster is now pushing 10,000, and the company has burgeoning offices in Bangalore, New York City, and Irvine, Calif., among many other cities, but the campus still feels like the brainiest university imaginable - one, however, in which every kid can afford a sports car (though geeky hybrids are cooler here than hot rods). Another similarity to college: New Googlers (Nooglers, in Google parlance) tend to put on the "Google 15" when confronted with all the free food. Here the shabbily dressed engineers always will be the big men (and, yes, women) on campus. Other cliques include the invariably fashion-forward young women and men who work in online-advertising sales; the IBM-ThinkPad toting Stanford MBAs; and the quants - math nerds who toil at making the company's keyword advertising system ever more eerily efficient. Hours are long - typical for Silicon Valley - and it's not unusual for engineers to be seen in the hallways at 3 a.m. debating some esoteric algorithmic conundrum. "Hardcore geeks are here because there's no place they'd rather be," says Dennis Hwang, a Google Webmaster who doubles as the artist who draws all the fancifully dressed-up versions of Google's home-page logo, called Doodles.
Teamwork is the norm, especially for big projects. Keith Coleman, a 26-year-old product manager who works on Gmail, oversees a ten-person secret project whose team members have taken over heir own conference room. They've given up their big space to be crammed into this room to get things done," says Coleman. The hideaway happens to be where Gmail's chat function was created. Lounge music is usually playing, engineers wander in and out, and there's no formal daily meeting, though the team tends to congregate between five and seven in the evening. "If I could capture anything that's great about Google," says Coleman, "it's that room."
Elsewhere on campus, Google has been methodically picking off experts in whatever field it desires and adding them to its collection of employees. Much has been made, for example, of the fact that Google now employs Vint Cerf, the "father" of the Internet, and Larry Brilliant, who helped eradicate smallpox and now runs Google's fledgling philanthropic arm. But the bench strength runs even deeper, including nonemployee advisors. One day Coleman, the Gmail product manager, noticed his former professor, Terry Winograd, a renowned Stanford researcher of human-computer-interaction design, roaming the hallways. Now Winograd, a Google consultant when he's not teaching at Stanford, sits in on Coleman's product bull sessions.
When they join Google, all the engineers receive a copy of Essential Java, written by former Sun engineer Joshua Bloch (the above-mentioned fan of roast quail). He joined Google in 2004 as chief Java architect. Engineers at Google swear by Python, a software-writing language. So last year the company hired Guido van Rossum, Python's author. Van Rossum brags on his personal Web page, "I knew Google's services to be awesome; to work there is even better. But best is that I get to spend half my time on Python, no strings attached!"
Working in the Googleplex
Van Rossum is a special case, but all Google engineers are famously required to devote 20% of their time to pursuing projects they dream up that will help the company. The projects actually have a realistic chance of being adopted too. Google News, Gmail, and the Google Finance site all sprouted from 20% time. Nontech ideas Googlers dream up have a shot at adoption as well. The Google shuttle bus exists today because Carrie Spivak, who used to work on the company's book-search product, got sick of driving to work, scouted out a bus company, then plotted out the routes a shuttle might take. She brought the idea to senior management only after she'd done all the research. Any other company Google's size would form a cross-divisional transportation feasibility committee to study the issue. Google just did it.
That's not to say that anything goes at Google, where even the smallest issues are open to academic-style debate. On pajama day, in the all-organic No Name CafÃ, I spot Sheryl Sandberg, the company's all-business vice president for online sales operations. Like perhaps a tenth of the employees I see, she looks as if she has just rolled out of bed (she's in turquoise flannel PJs with bears riding space rockets). But nearby is a coterie of engineers wearing tuxedos: In the spirit of debate, they're protesting pajama day.
Google has a name for its gazillionaires: "economic volunteers." The term refers to the several hundred employees who received gonzo option grants in the company's pre-IPO days. Just as Microsoft did for years, Google initially paid below-market salaries because everyone believed, correctly, that the stock's upside was so large. Lately, Google has begun paying salaries that are competitive with the rest of the tech industry. Experienced engineers can expect to make as much as $130,000 a year and receive 800 options and 400 shares of restricted stock when they join. New MBAs can expect between $80,000 and $120,000 and typically receive smaller option grants.
Though Google almost always wins talent wars with the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo, its twin HR demons are startups and retirement. Take the case of Niniane Wang, a 27-year-old engineer who received a million-dollar founders' award for her work on a program that searches computer desktops. She says she loves Google, puts all headhunter calls on "auto-reject," and isn't thinking about leaving ... but if she did leave, it would be to start her own company.
Wayne Rosing, an early vice president for engineering, has left to pursue his love of astronomy. Paul Buchheit, the celebrated engineer who dreamed up Gmail, "retired" recently. (He's 30.) Evan Williams, the highly regarded founder of Blogger, a Google acquisition, has left to launch another startup.
To stave off the inevitable trickle for the exits, Google is bringing in HR pros like Laszlo Bock, an ex--GE executive who joined the company earlier this year as vice president for people operations. Though the current corporate attrition rate is around 5% - and a more closely watched internal measure of employees whom Google truly regrets losing hovers around 22% - Bock's group is particularly concerned about mass vesting. At the end of 2002, Google had nearly 700 employees. All those employees - if they're still around - are now fully vested on their initial stock-option grants. Many of them received a generous batch of stock options in the spring of 2003, which will fully vest this spring, making them a flight risk. Already there are people who are coasting: Around campus they're said to be "resting and vesting."
The solution? Google is considering starting a sabbatical program and thinking of new career opportunities within the company for the restless. It has also institutionalized a bevy of compensation incentives, including restricted stock that immediately has value to new employees, founders' awards that can run into millions of dollars, and special bonuses. And it is about to unveil a new facet to its options program: Going forward, employees who've been around long enough to vest will be able to sell out-of-the-money options on the open market. Though no other company has tried such a system, Google says it is confident the Securities and Exchange Commission won't have an issue with it.
Another danger is harder to address: growth. It's easy to feel like an outlaw band that's changing the world when you have 100 employees. It's incredibly difficult when you have 10,000 or 100,000. Many Silicon Valley types, after all, don't like working for big companies because geeking out and trying new things becomes a hassle. Sergey Brin identifies with the concern. "Before, if I wanted to change a few lines of code and push it to the site, I'd just do it," he says. "The users would be the testers. We can't do that today."
In that respect, Google's in the same boat as any big tech company. But unlike, say, Microsoft or eBay, it does have some protection from the demands of the outside world. In a move seen as controversial when they unveiled it before the IPO in 2004, the founders retained voting control of the company, meaning that as long as Brin and Page are in charge, they get to decide whether the upkeep on the lap pool and climbing wall is worth the expense.
The one thing the founders can't control is how long Google stays on top. The Valley is littered with former "it" companies that slid into obscurity or devolved into middle-aged mediocrity. Which is why Google's founders have sought out a role model for building their culture, and it's not a tech company or an ad giant. It's Genentech, the biotech company that is No. 2 on the Fortune Best Companies to work for list (and was No. 1 last year). Genentech has seen drugs succeed wildly and fail miserably, has had years when its stock soared and years when it sank. But through all its ups and downs over 30 years, the company has remained a scientist's paradise and a place where people love to work.
The year Google went public, CEO Eric Schmidt welcomed Genentech's CEO, Art Levinson, to Google's board. Levinson likens his introduction to Google's management troika to his first meeting, in 1979, with Genentech's founders, who promised him he'd "save the world" by joining Genentech. "It's very similar to the message I heard from Larry, Sergey, and Eric," he says. "They see themselves as poised to do something radically different from what has ever been done anywhere else." In other words (except for that curing-cancer part), just like Genentech.
So back to that $483 question: Is Google's culture great because its stock is doing well, or is its stock doing well because its culture is great? The answer, of course, is that you can't answer the question when Google's stock is at $483. Like Genentech or any other company that's been through the wringer without losing the loyalty of its staff, you can gauge the impact the stock price has on the culture only once the stock takes a dive - or stalls for an uncomfortably long time (see Microsoft, 2001--06).
There are, however, encouraging signs, says Jeffrey Pfeffer, an organizational- behavior professor at Stanford. Pfeffer recalls lunching with Page several years ago, and even at that point the cofounder was serious about creating a corporate culture at Google. "They have been extremely thoughtful about this," he says. Pfeffer, who has done research on the money that companies save in the form of productivity gained by providing benefits that let employees focus on work, says Google's perks fit his research thesis to a tee.
Art Levinson, for his part, sees a parallel to Genentech that goes far beyond any perks. "What draws people to both companies is the environment, one where they have an ability to pursue things largely on their own terms," he says. Of course, there is one more reason Levinson is a Google acolyte: "Here I am, a guy who can afford a good meal, and every time I go to a Google board meeting, I don't leave until ten o'clock at night because I get a free dinner there."
At Google it really does always come back to the food.
Spend A Day Inside Googleplex
great Fortune article
Google is No. 1: Search and enjoy
The people are brilliant. The perks are epic.
But can Google's founders build a culture that doesn't depend on the stock price?
By Adam Lashinsky, Fortune senior writer
Mountain View, Calif. -- At Google it always comes back to the food.
For human resources director Stacy Sullivan, it's the Irish oatmeal with fresh berries at the Plymouth Rock Café, located in building 1550 near the "people operations" group. "I sometimes dream about it," she says. "Seriously." As a seven-year veteran of the company, engineer Jen Fitzpatrick has developed a more sophisticated palate, preferring the raw bar at the Basque-themed Café Pintxo, a tapas joint in building 47. Her mother is thrilled she's eating well at work: "She came in for lunch once and thanked the chef," says Fitzpatrick. Joshua Bloch, an expert on the Java software language, swears by the roast quail at haute eatery Café Seven, professing it to be the best meal on campus. "It's uniformly excellent," he raves.
I found that to be a gross distortion of the facts. The roasted black bass with parsley pesto and bread crumbs had a delicate flavor, superior mouth feel, and a light yet satisfying finish that seemed to me unmatched among the 11 free gourmet cafeterias Google runs at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.
Top 5 of Fortune's Top 100 Employers List
1. Google
2. Genentech
3. Wegmans Food Markets
4. Container Store
5. Whole Foods Market
Even the vast buffet that is the tech company's campus, however, cannot obscure the obstacles the company is facing. Says co-founder Sergey Brin: "I mean, the cafés have always been pretty healthy, but the snacks are not, and the efforts to fix that have been remarkably challenging." Though company lore has it that Brin and co-founder Larry Page believe no worker should be more than 150 feet from a food source, clearly not all food is equal. "A lot of people like their M&Ms. But the easy access is actually what's bad for them," he says.
Life inside Google
Of course, when it comes to America's new Best Company to Work For, the food is, well, just the appetizer. At Google you can do your laundry; drop off your dry cleaning; get an oil change, then have your car washed; work out in the gym; attend subsidized exercise classes; get a massage; study Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, and French; and ask a personal concierge to arrange dinner reservations. Naturally you can get haircuts onsite. Want to buy a hybrid car? The company will give you $5,000 toward that environmentally friendly end. Care to refer a friend to work at Google? Google would like that too, and it'll give you a $2,000 reward. Just have a new baby? Congratulations! Your employer will reimburse you for up to $500 in takeout food to ease your first four weeks at home. Looking to make new friends? Attend a weekly TGIF party, where there's usually a band playing. Five onsite doctors are available to give you a checkup, free of charge.
Many Silicon Valley companies provide shuttle-bus transportation from area train stations. Google operates free, Wi-Fi-enabled coaches from five Bay Area locations. Lactation rooms are common in corporate America; Google provides breast pumps so that nursing moms don't have to haul the equipment to work. Work is such a cozy place that it's sometimes difficult for Google employees to leave the office, which is precisely how the company justifies the expenses, none of which it breaks out of its administrative costs.
Even people who don't work here like to loiter: The company has become a stop on the world lecture circuit, attracting the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. "You've got to ask yourself why these people are coming here," says 24-year-old engineer Neha Narula. "I think they come here to be energized by the people at Google."
The people at Google, it should be stated, almost universally see themselves as the most interesting people on the planet. Googlers tend to be happy-go-lucky on the outside, but Type A at their core. Ask one what he or she is doing, and it's never "selling ads" or "writing code." No, they're on a quest "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." That's from the actual mission statement, by the way, which employees can and do cite with cloying frequency.
The perks of being a Googler
It's easy for Google's people to be energized, though, when their company is so stinking rich that it continues to ooze cash even while lavishing benefits on its staff. Just eight years out of the garage, Google will surpass $10 billion in sales for 2006. Its operating margins are a stunning 35%, and it ended the third quarter with $10.4 billion in cash. Its stock has soared from $85 a little over two years ago to a recent $483. All of which raises the question: Is Google's culture the cause of its success or merely a result? Put another way: Is Google a great place to work because its stock is at $483, or is its stock at $483 because it's a great place to work?
I'm sitting on a heated toilet in my pajamas. I'm in engineering building 40 at Google on "pajama day," and directly in front of me, attached to the inside door of the toilet stall, is a one-page flier, printed on plain white paper, titled "Testing on the Toilet, Episode 21." The document, which is designed to prod the brains of engineers who test software code, explores such subjects as "lode coverage" and reminds engineers that even biobreaks need not interrupt their work.
Presuming that ones's stay here isn't sufficient to process that lesson, the sheet provides a link to two internal Web sites, http://tott/ (for Testing on the Toilet) and http://botw/ (Bug of the Week). Not being a software engineer, I understand little of what I'm reading. Yet it reminds me of the first two sentences of the now famous founders' letter Page and Brin distributed to prospective Google shareholders before the company's 2004 IPO: "Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one." Mission accomplished.
In its earliest days Google was more or less a postdoctoral extension of the Stanford computer science department, from which Page, Brin, and a goodly number of their pals sprang. To this day, they jam employees into shared offices and cubicles and would do so even if Google had more space - because Page, a student of "office flow," likes the idea of recreating that university environment in which he and Brin wrote the first Google search engine.
The two hired a chef early on because it beat heating up ramen noodles.
It wasn't hard for Google's founders to break the rules of a traditional company - they had never worked fulltime at one. Stacy Sullivan, Google's first human resources executive, recalls that the founders came to her on her second day on the job, in late 1999, and suggested that the company convert a conference room into a childcare center. Google employees had a sum total of two children at the time. Though Sullivan eventually convinced them that, because of zoning issues, the conference room was not a proper child-care facility, "they looked at me and said, 'Why not?' "
Google's employment roster is now pushing 10,000, and the company has burgeoning offices in Bangalore, New York City, and Irvine, Calif., among many other cities, but the campus still feels like the brainiest university imaginable - one, however, in which every kid can afford a sports car (though geeky hybrids are cooler here than hot rods). Another similarity to college: New Googlers (Nooglers, in Google parlance) tend to put on the "Google 15" when confronted with all the free food. Here the shabbily dressed engineers always will be the big men (and, yes, women) on campus. Other cliques include the invariably fashion-forward young women and men who work in online-advertising sales; the IBM-ThinkPad toting Stanford MBAs; and the quants - math nerds who toil at making the company's keyword advertising system ever more eerily efficient. Hours are long - typical for Silicon Valley - and it's not unusual for engineers to be seen in the hallways at 3 a.m. debating some esoteric algorithmic conundrum. "Hardcore geeks are here because there's no place they'd rather be," says Dennis Hwang, a Google Webmaster who doubles as the artist who draws all the fancifully dressed-up versions of Google's home-page logo, called Doodles.
Teamwork is the norm, especially for big projects. Keith Coleman, a 26-year-old product manager who works on Gmail, oversees a ten-person secret project whose team members have taken over heir own conference room. They've given up their big space to be crammed into this room to get things done," says Coleman. The hideaway happens to be where Gmail's chat function was created. Lounge music is usually playing, engineers wander in and out, and there's no formal daily meeting, though the team tends to congregate between five and seven in the evening. "If I could capture anything that's great about Google," says Coleman, "it's that room."
Elsewhere on campus, Google has been methodically picking off experts in whatever field it desires and adding them to its collection of employees. Much has been made, for example, of the fact that Google now employs Vint Cerf, the "father" of the Internet, and Larry Brilliant, who helped eradicate smallpox and now runs Google's fledgling philanthropic arm. But the bench strength runs even deeper, including nonemployee advisors. One day Coleman, the Gmail product manager, noticed his former professor, Terry Winograd, a renowned Stanford researcher of human-computer-interaction design, roaming the hallways. Now Winograd, a Google consultant when he's not teaching at Stanford, sits in on Coleman's product bull sessions.
When they join Google, all the engineers receive a copy of Essential Java, written by former Sun engineer Joshua Bloch (the above-mentioned fan of roast quail). He joined Google in 2004 as chief Java architect. Engineers at Google swear by Python, a software-writing language. So last year the company hired Guido van Rossum, Python's author. Van Rossum brags on his personal Web page, "I knew Google's services to be awesome; to work there is even better. But best is that I get to spend half my time on Python, no strings attached!"
Working in the Googleplex
Van Rossum is a special case, but all Google engineers are famously required to devote 20% of their time to pursuing projects they dream up that will help the company. The projects actually have a realistic chance of being adopted too. Google News, Gmail, and the Google Finance site all sprouted from 20% time. Nontech ideas Googlers dream up have a shot at adoption as well. The Google shuttle bus exists today because Carrie Spivak, who used to work on the company's book-search product, got sick of driving to work, scouted out a bus company, then plotted out the routes a shuttle might take. She brought the idea to senior management only after she'd done all the research. Any other company Google's size would form a cross-divisional transportation feasibility committee to study the issue. Google just did it.
That's not to say that anything goes at Google, where even the smallest issues are open to academic-style debate. On pajama day, in the all-organic No Name CafÃ, I spot Sheryl Sandberg, the company's all-business vice president for online sales operations. Like perhaps a tenth of the employees I see, she looks as if she has just rolled out of bed (she's in turquoise flannel PJs with bears riding space rockets). But nearby is a coterie of engineers wearing tuxedos: In the spirit of debate, they're protesting pajama day.
Google has a name for its gazillionaires: "economic volunteers." The term refers to the several hundred employees who received gonzo option grants in the company's pre-IPO days. Just as Microsoft did for years, Google initially paid below-market salaries because everyone believed, correctly, that the stock's upside was so large. Lately, Google has begun paying salaries that are competitive with the rest of the tech industry. Experienced engineers can expect to make as much as $130,000 a year and receive 800 options and 400 shares of restricted stock when they join. New MBAs can expect between $80,000 and $120,000 and typically receive smaller option grants.
Though Google almost always wins talent wars with the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo, its twin HR demons are startups and retirement. Take the case of Niniane Wang, a 27-year-old engineer who received a million-dollar founders' award for her work on a program that searches computer desktops. She says she loves Google, puts all headhunter calls on "auto-reject," and isn't thinking about leaving ... but if she did leave, it would be to start her own company.
Wayne Rosing, an early vice president for engineering, has left to pursue his love of astronomy. Paul Buchheit, the celebrated engineer who dreamed up Gmail, "retired" recently. (He's 30.) Evan Williams, the highly regarded founder of Blogger, a Google acquisition, has left to launch another startup.
To stave off the inevitable trickle for the exits, Google is bringing in HR pros like Laszlo Bock, an ex--GE executive who joined the company earlier this year as vice president for people operations. Though the current corporate attrition rate is around 5% - and a more closely watched internal measure of employees whom Google truly regrets losing hovers around 22% - Bock's group is particularly concerned about mass vesting. At the end of 2002, Google had nearly 700 employees. All those employees - if they're still around - are now fully vested on their initial stock-option grants. Many of them received a generous batch of stock options in the spring of 2003, which will fully vest this spring, making them a flight risk. Already there are people who are coasting: Around campus they're said to be "resting and vesting."
The solution? Google is considering starting a sabbatical program and thinking of new career opportunities within the company for the restless. It has also institutionalized a bevy of compensation incentives, including restricted stock that immediately has value to new employees, founders' awards that can run into millions of dollars, and special bonuses. And it is about to unveil a new facet to its options program: Going forward, employees who've been around long enough to vest will be able to sell out-of-the-money options on the open market. Though no other company has tried such a system, Google says it is confident the Securities and Exchange Commission won't have an issue with it.
Another danger is harder to address: growth. It's easy to feel like an outlaw band that's changing the world when you have 100 employees. It's incredibly difficult when you have 10,000 or 100,000. Many Silicon Valley types, after all, don't like working for big companies because geeking out and trying new things becomes a hassle. Sergey Brin identifies with the concern. "Before, if I wanted to change a few lines of code and push it to the site, I'd just do it," he says. "The users would be the testers. We can't do that today."
In that respect, Google's in the same boat as any big tech company. But unlike, say, Microsoft or eBay, it does have some protection from the demands of the outside world. In a move seen as controversial when they unveiled it before the IPO in 2004, the founders retained voting control of the company, meaning that as long as Brin and Page are in charge, they get to decide whether the upkeep on the lap pool and climbing wall is worth the expense.
The one thing the founders can't control is how long Google stays on top. The Valley is littered with former "it" companies that slid into obscurity or devolved into middle-aged mediocrity. Which is why Google's founders have sought out a role model for building their culture, and it's not a tech company or an ad giant. It's Genentech, the biotech company that is No. 2 on the Fortune Best Companies to work for list (and was No. 1 last year). Genentech has seen drugs succeed wildly and fail miserably, has had years when its stock soared and years when it sank. But through all its ups and downs over 30 years, the company has remained a scientist's paradise and a place where people love to work.
The year Google went public, CEO Eric Schmidt welcomed Genentech's CEO, Art Levinson, to Google's board. Levinson likens his introduction to Google's management troika to his first meeting, in 1979, with Genentech's founders, who promised him he'd "save the world" by joining Genentech. "It's very similar to the message I heard from Larry, Sergey, and Eric," he says. "They see themselves as poised to do something radically different from what has ever been done anywhere else." In other words (except for that curing-cancer part), just like Genentech.
So back to that $483 question: Is Google's culture great because its stock is doing well, or is its stock doing well because its culture is great? The answer, of course, is that you can't answer the question when Google's stock is at $483. Like Genentech or any other company that's been through the wringer without losing the loyalty of its staff, you can gauge the impact the stock price has on the culture only once the stock takes a dive - or stalls for an uncomfortably long time (see Microsoft, 2001--06).
There are, however, encouraging signs, says Jeffrey Pfeffer, an organizational- behavior professor at Stanford. Pfeffer recalls lunching with Page several years ago, and even at that point the cofounder was serious about creating a corporate culture at Google. "They have been extremely thoughtful about this," he says. Pfeffer, who has done research on the money that companies save in the form of productivity gained by providing benefits that let employees focus on work, says Google's perks fit his research thesis to a tee.
Art Levinson, for his part, sees a parallel to Genentech that goes far beyond any perks. "What draws people to both companies is the environment, one where they have an ability to pursue things largely on their own terms," he says. Of course, there is one more reason Levinson is a Google acolyte: "Here I am, a guy who can afford a good meal, and every time I go to a Google board meeting, I don't leave until ten o'clock at night because I get a free dinner there."
At Google it really does always come back to the food.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Google to Increase Self Promotion in First Quarter 2007.
original article from Wall Street Journal with comments from Peak Positions.
Google Inc. may finally have learned how to promote itself without compromising its core keyword search principles. Like its own legions of online advertisers, Google plans on increasing marketing of its many new products throughout the homepage of Google.com in early 2007.
The Mountain View, Calif., company shook up the advertising world -- and made a very good living -- by selling subtle text Pay Per Click advertisements designed to give advertisers leads without compromising organic and natural keyword search results.
Unlike floundering search rivals such as Yahoo Inc. and IAC/InteractiveCorp.'s Ask.com unit, Google does not use blatant banner ads or buy network television spots seeking to increase brand awareness and site traffic. Google has maintained a famously simple homepage, displaying a simple set of links to search services, including keyword search results for the Web, images, video, news and maps.
The minimalist marketing strategy has provoked some whistles of disapproval from investors (typical ... many on the street still fail to understand after nearly 7 years the market share power and user loyalty gains made by serving relevant keyword search results to searchers worldwide) and some industry watchers are concerned that many of Google's newer products -- Finance, Real Estate, Answers -- have been floundering because people don't know enought about them. The street has one primary concern that is to aid Google in maintaining its torrid growth rate and nothing else.
Yet, slowly but surely, Google has been finding its own true-to-character techniques for pitching its expanding array of wares. Recently, it appears to be using its own immensely popular search site to invite users to try another product, typically in a way that is couched more as a helpful hint than a salesman's pitch.
"They're starting to promote many of their other products" that were created or acquired during the last couple of years, says LeeAnn Prescott, an analyst at Hitwise.
The slow change underscores the tension between Google's simpler past as a search engine -- epitomized by the clean homepage that won over millions of users -- and its more complicated, portal-like future. The crisp look can't be shed without peril, but a menu of services requires a little clutter.
"Nobody's going to find these new tools unless they do something to promote them," Ms. Prescott says.
Recently, Google has run sizable promotions for its browser-toolbar download in a box at the top right corner of its homepage. It has also recently encouraged homepage visitors to download the latest version of the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation's Firefox Web browser, a growing rival to Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser that uses Google as its default search engine.
Google has long promoted the toolbar, and other products, on its homepage. But the recent plugs have been closer in style to banner ads -- being at the top and employing graphics -- than the low-key one-liners under the search box that Google has used before. Heralding the new year, for instance, Google last week ran a tongue in cheek, self promoting plug that said, "Get disorganized in 2007. Use Google Desktop to find your files."
Both the toolbar and the relationship with Firefox aid Google's search-query market share because they make using Google more convenient -- no visit to Google.com is necessary -- and can cement user loyalty.
More pitches of this sort can be expected, but Google may be unwilling to use the power of its sleek homepage much more aggressively.
"We are committed to the clean, uncluttered user interface of the Google homepage. From time to time we promote products on the Google homepage in order to help people continue to find and access information that's important to them," a Google spokeswoman said.
This assurance from Google to keep the homepage design clean is definitely Great news to keyword searchers. Google's simple homepage interface of Google.com and their deep search databases is exactly what has made Google the dominant search player and an internet icon throughout the world.
Google understands that internet users want to search by keyword and Google has not attempted to become all things to all users like: Yahoo, MSN, Ask and other non-committed search comptetitors, that are profit-driven, advertisising focused, and quite often deliver cluttered search results pages that are hard to use and many times too bulky.
Google declines to say how effective these product plugs on the google.com homepage have been to date, but did day that Google constantly makes "adjustments" to Google.com pages to help users find information and to test new designs and user interfaces.
But it appears that even small changes on the google.com can have a big impact. No doubt, with billions of users using the google.com homepage daily it only makes logical sense that even subtle design changes to the Internet's most popular homepage will create huge impacts on traffic flow.
According to research from Hitwise, traffic to Google's Blog Search service more than doubled over a two-week period in October after Google put a simple link to the service on its Google News homepage. About 60% of its blog search traffic has come directly from Google News since then, compared with 1% before the change, Hitwise says.
"What they're doing is very subtle," Ms. Prescott says. And it's "effective, clearly, but it's almost like they do it kind of late," pointing out that Google Blog Search was sitting around for a long time before the company began to push it.
Hitwise has tracked how Google's past in-house promotions have led to surges in use of its services. It noted a jump last winter for Book Search, to the fifth-most-used Google service from the ninth, after Google ran a simple message at the bottom of some search-results pages reading: "Try your search again on Google Book Search."
Google has been more liberal lately in its use of the search-results pages as a marketing tool, and in a number of different ways.
Indeed, Google's own search-results pages could be the company's best marketing tool.
"The most effective way to promote a new product is just by showing it to [users] when it's relevant to what they're looking for," said Google Vice President Marissa Mayer in April.
"In terms of driving traffic ... that technique actually yields the most users," compared with links on the homepage or other types of marketing, she said, adding that it is "the best way for us to build up a meaningful awareness of the product."
Look for many, new subtle changes to the google.com homepage design as the powerful wall street investment crowd with little understanding of the internet continues to try and persuade the Google management team to focus more on monetizing keyword search results and sacrifice Google's core mission and commitment to date of delivering relevant results to keyword searchers worldwide.
original article from Wall Street Journal with comments from Peak Positions.
Google Inc. may finally have learned how to promote itself without compromising its core keyword search principles. Like its own legions of online advertisers, Google plans on increasing marketing of its many new products throughout the homepage of Google.com in early 2007.
The Mountain View, Calif., company shook up the advertising world -- and made a very good living -- by selling subtle text Pay Per Click advertisements designed to give advertisers leads without compromising organic and natural keyword search results.
Unlike floundering search rivals such as Yahoo Inc. and IAC/InteractiveCorp.'s Ask.com unit, Google does not use blatant banner ads or buy network television spots seeking to increase brand awareness and site traffic. Google has maintained a famously simple homepage, displaying a simple set of links to search services, including keyword search results for the Web, images, video, news and maps.
The minimalist marketing strategy has provoked some whistles of disapproval from investors (typical ... many on the street still fail to understand after nearly 7 years the market share power and user loyalty gains made by serving relevant keyword search results to searchers worldwide) and some industry watchers are concerned that many of Google's newer products -- Finance, Real Estate, Answers -- have been floundering because people don't know enought about them. The street has one primary concern that is to aid Google in maintaining its torrid growth rate and nothing else.
Yet, slowly but surely, Google has been finding its own true-to-character techniques for pitching its expanding array of wares. Recently, it appears to be using its own immensely popular search site to invite users to try another product, typically in a way that is couched more as a helpful hint than a salesman's pitch.
"They're starting to promote many of their other products" that were created or acquired during the last couple of years, says LeeAnn Prescott, an analyst at Hitwise.
The slow change underscores the tension between Google's simpler past as a search engine -- epitomized by the clean homepage that won over millions of users -- and its more complicated, portal-like future. The crisp look can't be shed without peril, but a menu of services requires a little clutter.
"Nobody's going to find these new tools unless they do something to promote them," Ms. Prescott says.
Recently, Google has run sizable promotions for its browser-toolbar download in a box at the top right corner of its homepage. It has also recently encouraged homepage visitors to download the latest version of the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation's Firefox Web browser, a growing rival to Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser that uses Google as its default search engine.
Google has long promoted the toolbar, and other products, on its homepage. But the recent plugs have been closer in style to banner ads -- being at the top and employing graphics -- than the low-key one-liners under the search box that Google has used before. Heralding the new year, for instance, Google last week ran a tongue in cheek, self promoting plug that said, "Get disorganized in 2007. Use Google Desktop to find your files."
Both the toolbar and the relationship with Firefox aid Google's search-query market share because they make using Google more convenient -- no visit to Google.com is necessary -- and can cement user loyalty.
More pitches of this sort can be expected, but Google may be unwilling to use the power of its sleek homepage much more aggressively.
"We are committed to the clean, uncluttered user interface of the Google homepage. From time to time we promote products on the Google homepage in order to help people continue to find and access information that's important to them," a Google spokeswoman said.
This assurance from Google to keep the homepage design clean is definitely Great news to keyword searchers. Google's simple homepage interface of Google.com and their deep search databases is exactly what has made Google the dominant search player and an internet icon throughout the world.
Google understands that internet users want to search by keyword and Google has not attempted to become all things to all users like: Yahoo, MSN, Ask and other non-committed search comptetitors, that are profit-driven, advertisising focused, and quite often deliver cluttered search results pages that are hard to use and many times too bulky.
Google declines to say how effective these product plugs on the google.com homepage have been to date, but did day that Google constantly makes "adjustments" to Google.com pages to help users find information and to test new designs and user interfaces.
But it appears that even small changes on the google.com can have a big impact. No doubt, with billions of users using the google.com homepage daily it only makes logical sense that even subtle design changes to the Internet's most popular homepage will create huge impacts on traffic flow.
According to research from Hitwise, traffic to Google's Blog Search service more than doubled over a two-week period in October after Google put a simple link to the service on its Google News homepage. About 60% of its blog search traffic has come directly from Google News since then, compared with 1% before the change, Hitwise says.
"What they're doing is very subtle," Ms. Prescott says. And it's "effective, clearly, but it's almost like they do it kind of late," pointing out that Google Blog Search was sitting around for a long time before the company began to push it.
Hitwise has tracked how Google's past in-house promotions have led to surges in use of its services. It noted a jump last winter for Book Search, to the fifth-most-used Google service from the ninth, after Google ran a simple message at the bottom of some search-results pages reading: "Try your search again on Google Book Search."
Google has been more liberal lately in its use of the search-results pages as a marketing tool, and in a number of different ways.
Indeed, Google's own search-results pages could be the company's best marketing tool.
"The most effective way to promote a new product is just by showing it to [users] when it's relevant to what they're looking for," said Google Vice President Marissa Mayer in April.
"In terms of driving traffic ... that technique actually yields the most users," compared with links on the homepage or other types of marketing, she said, adding that it is "the best way for us to build up a meaningful awareness of the product."
Look for many, new subtle changes to the google.com homepage design as the powerful wall street investment crowd with little understanding of the internet continues to try and persuade the Google management team to focus more on monetizing keyword search results and sacrifice Google's core mission and commitment to date of delivering relevant results to keyword searchers worldwide.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
At Yahoo, Rising Finance Chief Faces a Host of Challenges
Recharging Yahoo Ad Systems a Big Test for Susan Decker
The leading CEO Successor at Yahoo.
edit of wall street journal story
Yahoo's reorganization vaults Susan Decker, a highly regarded chief financial officer with limited operational experience, to oversee some of the companies' biggest challenges.
Under the new yahoo management overhaul Ms. Decker, 44 years old, assumes responsibility for Sunnyvale, Calif., based Yahoo revenue-generating activities, including its sales of online advertising for Yahoo and partner sites.
Yahoo's shares have slumped more than 31% since the beginning of the year, amid a delay to a key ad-system upgrade (Yahoo Panama) and slowing revenue growth the company partly attributed to increased competition from rival Web sites for ad dollars. Yahoo needs to improve organic search results.
As head of Head of Yahoo's Advertiser & Publisher Group Ms. Decker will be charged directly with tackling such ad-related issues, which some people close to the company characterize as a test of her fitness to potentially succeed Chief Executive Terry Semel, 63 years old, upon his eventual retirement.
Yahoo said its new corporate structure, which was also accompanied by the announced departure of several senior executives including Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig and Yahoo Media Group head Lloyd Braun and possibly 1,300 other Yahoo employees, increases accountability and speeds decision-making.
Can Yahoo quickly repair and improve its tired search engine and second tier online-advertising systems, with the latest overhaul dubbed internally as "Yahoo Panama."?
Yahoo expects the Panama upgrade, that began in late July and delayed several times and then hastily and only partly launched, to help increase profits starting early in 2007, though key executives have conceded uncertainties about the timing or magnitude of the boost. As numerous technical snafus have plagued Panama to date.
That makes the new role of Ms. Decker, a former equity-research analyst and fan of investor Warren Buffett, a crucial one for the company. Ms. Decker, who joined Yahoo as chief financial officer in June 2000, has frequently handled more chores than the traditional finance functions of a chief financial officer, say people familiar with the matter, but her profile has increased in the past year.
Ms. Decker led Yahoo's talks with eBay Inc., in which Yahoo beat out Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. for a pact to serve ads on eBay's auction site and marketplace in the U.S. this year. Semiconductor giant Intel Corp. last month named her to its board of directors.
Ms. Decker has limited experience in operations at Yahoo. "The Street is going to perceive this, fair or not, as a test for Sue: Can she run an operational unit?" says Benjamin Schachter, an Internet analyst at UBS Securities, whose parent company or its subsidiaries own a stake in Yahoo.
As part of a separate reorganization announced in September, Ms. Decker added operational oversight over a new unit that includes classifieds, dating, jobs, real estate, travel, autos, shopping and auctions, now part of her expanding group under this week's restructuring. Yahoo said Ms. Decker will also continue to perform her finance duties until it finds a successor in that role.
A Yahoo spokeswoman said Ms. Decker's changing role was unrelated to any succession planning and that Mr. Semel had no plans to leave the company (yet).
Regarding Ms. Decker's limited experience running operations, the spokeswoman said, "If anyone can do it, I'm sure it's Sue Decker." The spokeswoman said Ms. Decker or other company executives were not available to comment.
Under the reorganization, Senior Vice President Jeff Weiner, 36 years old, also assumes a more prominent role in the company. Mr. Weiner, who worked with Mr. Semel at Warner Bros. and the Windsor Digital private-equity firm prior to joining Yahoo in 2001, has overseen Yahoo's efforts to challenge Google in Web search and squeeze more money from its frazzled search advertising system. Now Mr. Weiner will have responsibility for a broad swathe of the company's products, including search, under a yet-to-be-named head of a newly created Audience Group.
Some people close to Yahoo describe the new role as a test of Mr. Weiner's management skills and describe his track record as somewhat mixed, given how Google is broadening its lead in Web search market share in recent years and the delay in the Panama project.
The Yahoo spokeswoman said Mr. Weiner deserved credit for Yahoo's efforts to launch its own search technology in 2004 and recent initiatives, such as its popular Answers service, while any problems with the search ad system predated his responsibility. Mr. Weiner will oversee the rollout of the Yahoo Panama upgrade through at least the first quarter of 2007.
With his resignation, Mr. Rosensweig will join a pack of top media and Internet executives whose departures from their posts have been announced this year amid a rapidly changing industry landscape. They include eBay Chief Operating Officer Maynard Webb and PayPal unit President Jeff Jordan, News Corp.'s Fox's digital czar Ross Levinsohn, Viacom Inc. CEO Tom Freston and Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Time Warner Inc.'s America Online Internet unit.
Mr. Rosensweig said he was leaving Yahoo of his own accord at the end of March, after having been asked by Yahoo to assume a role that was "to be bigger and fun" but to which he was asked to commit for another three years or longer. Mr. Rosensweig said ultimately he "was ready for something new."
Recharging Yahoo Ad Systems a Big Test for Susan Decker
The leading CEO Successor at Yahoo.
edit of wall street journal story
Yahoo's reorganization vaults Susan Decker, a highly regarded chief financial officer with limited operational experience, to oversee some of the companies' biggest challenges.
Under the new yahoo management overhaul Ms. Decker, 44 years old, assumes responsibility for Sunnyvale, Calif., based Yahoo revenue-generating activities, including its sales of online advertising for Yahoo and partner sites.
Yahoo's shares have slumped more than 31% since the beginning of the year, amid a delay to a key ad-system upgrade (Yahoo Panama) and slowing revenue growth the company partly attributed to increased competition from rival Web sites for ad dollars. Yahoo needs to improve organic search results.
As head of Head of Yahoo's Advertiser & Publisher Group Ms. Decker will be charged directly with tackling such ad-related issues, which some people close to the company characterize as a test of her fitness to potentially succeed Chief Executive Terry Semel, 63 years old, upon his eventual retirement.
Yahoo said its new corporate structure, which was also accompanied by the announced departure of several senior executives including Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig and Yahoo Media Group head Lloyd Braun and possibly 1,300 other Yahoo employees, increases accountability and speeds decision-making.
Can Yahoo quickly repair and improve its tired search engine and second tier online-advertising systems, with the latest overhaul dubbed internally as "Yahoo Panama."?
Yahoo expects the Panama upgrade, that began in late July and delayed several times and then hastily and only partly launched, to help increase profits starting early in 2007, though key executives have conceded uncertainties about the timing or magnitude of the boost. As numerous technical snafus have plagued Panama to date.
That makes the new role of Ms. Decker, a former equity-research analyst and fan of investor Warren Buffett, a crucial one for the company. Ms. Decker, who joined Yahoo as chief financial officer in June 2000, has frequently handled more chores than the traditional finance functions of a chief financial officer, say people familiar with the matter, but her profile has increased in the past year.
Ms. Decker led Yahoo's talks with eBay Inc., in which Yahoo beat out Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. for a pact to serve ads on eBay's auction site and marketplace in the U.S. this year. Semiconductor giant Intel Corp. last month named her to its board of directors.
Ms. Decker has limited experience in operations at Yahoo. "The Street is going to perceive this, fair or not, as a test for Sue: Can she run an operational unit?" says Benjamin Schachter, an Internet analyst at UBS Securities, whose parent company or its subsidiaries own a stake in Yahoo.
As part of a separate reorganization announced in September, Ms. Decker added operational oversight over a new unit that includes classifieds, dating, jobs, real estate, travel, autos, shopping and auctions, now part of her expanding group under this week's restructuring. Yahoo said Ms. Decker will also continue to perform her finance duties until it finds a successor in that role.
A Yahoo spokeswoman said Ms. Decker's changing role was unrelated to any succession planning and that Mr. Semel had no plans to leave the company (yet).
Regarding Ms. Decker's limited experience running operations, the spokeswoman said, "If anyone can do it, I'm sure it's Sue Decker." The spokeswoman said Ms. Decker or other company executives were not available to comment.
Under the reorganization, Senior Vice President Jeff Weiner, 36 years old, also assumes a more prominent role in the company. Mr. Weiner, who worked with Mr. Semel at Warner Bros. and the Windsor Digital private-equity firm prior to joining Yahoo in 2001, has overseen Yahoo's efforts to challenge Google in Web search and squeeze more money from its frazzled search advertising system. Now Mr. Weiner will have responsibility for a broad swathe of the company's products, including search, under a yet-to-be-named head of a newly created Audience Group.
Some people close to Yahoo describe the new role as a test of Mr. Weiner's management skills and describe his track record as somewhat mixed, given how Google is broadening its lead in Web search market share in recent years and the delay in the Panama project.
The Yahoo spokeswoman said Mr. Weiner deserved credit for Yahoo's efforts to launch its own search technology in 2004 and recent initiatives, such as its popular Answers service, while any problems with the search ad system predated his responsibility. Mr. Weiner will oversee the rollout of the Yahoo Panama upgrade through at least the first quarter of 2007.
With his resignation, Mr. Rosensweig will join a pack of top media and Internet executives whose departures from their posts have been announced this year amid a rapidly changing industry landscape. They include eBay Chief Operating Officer Maynard Webb and PayPal unit President Jeff Jordan, News Corp.'s Fox's digital czar Ross Levinsohn, Viacom Inc. CEO Tom Freston and Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Time Warner Inc.'s America Online Internet unit.
Mr. Rosensweig said he was leaving Yahoo of his own accord at the end of March, after having been asked by Yahoo to assume a role that was "to be bigger and fun" but to which he was asked to commit for another three years or longer. Mr. Rosensweig said ultimately he "was ready for something new."
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Yahoo Announces Major Shake-Up
Streamlining Focus On (3) Core Areas: Audience, Advertising, Technology
Yahoo is tackling its most difficult challenge since the dot-com bust with sweeping organizational changes aimed at cleaning up a mess of the Internet icon's own making.
The overhaul, announced Tuesday night, represents Yahoo's mea culpa for meandering aimlessly during the past year, to the chagrin of investors and the delight of competitors like Google Inc. that lured away online traffic and advertisers.
Yahoo has fallen out of favor on Wall Street largely because Google — the Internet's search leader — has done a far better job of figuring out which ads are most likely to elicit clicks. That action generates more profits for Google and its partners while keeping advertisers happy with a steady stream of prospective customers.
To compound its misery, Yahoo has been introducing a mishmash of products with no clear strategy on how they blend into the rest of the mix on its Web site. The scattershot approach appears to have aggravated and confused many consumers who are gravitating to new Internet hot spots such as News Corp.'s MySpace.com and YouTube, which Google just bought for $1.76 billion.
Sunnyvale-based Yahoo believes it can get back on track by consolidating its operations into three groups focused on its audience, advertising network and behind-the-scenes technology.
The shake-up will reshuffle top management, entrusting Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker to fix the problems bedeviling Yahoo's advertising system and opening a job for an executive who will be hired to guide efforts to make Yahoo's Web site more useful and relevant.
At least two top executives won't be part of Yahoo's new agenda.
Lloyd Braun, a former television executive hired two years ago to run Yahoo's media division in Southern California, has already left the company. Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo's chief operating officer since 2002, will step down in March once the reorganization is complete.
Yahoo Chairman Terry Semel remains chief executive, although his job security and legacy at the company may be riding on how well this makeover pans out.
Once revered on Wall Street for reviving Yahoo after the dot-com meltdown, Semel has come under fire this year amid slowing profit growth that has battered the company's stock price.
Semel's fix-it strategy didn't impress investors Wednesday. Yahoo shares fell 57 cents to close at $26.86 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Yahoo's stock price has plunged by more than 30 percent so far this year, to wipe out nearly $20 billion in shareholder wealth.
The fallout might include pink slips for some of its 11,000 employees.
Banc of America Securities analyst Brian Pitz predicted in a Wednesday research note that Yahoo will consider pruning its payrolls next year as part of an effort to boost its profits.
Standard & Poor's analyst Scott Kessler also thinks Yahoo might clean house in its media division now that Braun is gone. "You have to wonder about the long-term future there," Kessler said. "You could see some paring down there."
Yahoo spokeswoman Kelly Delaney declined to comment about the chances of future layoffs, but Semel downplayed the possibility in a statement posted on the company's Web site. "Let me stress that we're organizing the company for growth and are continuing to hire great talent," he wrote.
Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president in charge of the company's communications products, made a case for 1,500 to 2,000 layoffs in a recent memo that was leaked to the media.
"For far too many employees, there is another person with dramatically similar and overlapping responsibilities," Garlinghouse wrote. "This slows us down and burdens the company with unnecessary costs."
That memo, which likened Yahoo's business recipe to peanut butter spread too thinly over toast, foreshadowed some of the actions taken in Tuesday's shake-up. But in his Web posting, Semel indicated that the reorganization began to take shape before Garlinghouse wrote his memo.
In an attempt to address it most pressing problem, Yahoo has been working on a series of improvements to its advertising formula. After promising to unveil the advertising change by the crucial holiday shopping season, Yahoo encountered unexpected hiccups that delayed any financial gains until next year.
Decker, a former Wall Street analyst who has been Yahoo's CFO for six years, is being entrusted to make sure the advertising upgrades pay off. The decision to put her in such a crucial job makes her a prime candidate to succeed the 63-year-old Semel.
"It's obvious Sue Decker is now the heir apparent," Kessler said. "I think (the board) may want to see how she does in an operational capacity before letting her move in as CEO."
Decker will be up to the challenges ahead, predicted Rob Solomon, a former Yahoo executive who left the company nearly a year ago to become CEO of SideStep, a Silicon Valley search engine focused on travel. "Sue Decker is brilliant, always the smartest person in whatever room she walks into," Solomon said.
Semel may have held on to his job for now because a change-in-command during the final weeks of the holiday shopping season probably would have rattled investors already antsy about the forthcoming improvements to the advertising model, Kessler said.
A former movie executive, Semel still has a residual of goodwill for lifting Yahoo out of the dot-com doldrums after he joined the company in May 2001.
Back then, Yahoo was floundering along with just about every other company whose business relied on the Internet. Semel turned things around in a traumatic reorganization that eliminated hundreds of jobs before engineering a series of key acquisitions that paid off as refurbished computer systems advertisers shifted more spending to the Internet.
This time, though, Yahoo's troubles seem to be largely self-inflicted, raising questions whether the company needs new blood to heal the wounds.
Streamlining Focus On (3) Core Areas: Audience, Advertising, Technology
Yahoo is tackling its most difficult challenge since the dot-com bust with sweeping organizational changes aimed at cleaning up a mess of the Internet icon's own making.
The overhaul, announced Tuesday night, represents Yahoo's mea culpa for meandering aimlessly during the past year, to the chagrin of investors and the delight of competitors like Google Inc. that lured away online traffic and advertisers.
Yahoo has fallen out of favor on Wall Street largely because Google — the Internet's search leader — has done a far better job of figuring out which ads are most likely to elicit clicks. That action generates more profits for Google and its partners while keeping advertisers happy with a steady stream of prospective customers.
To compound its misery, Yahoo has been introducing a mishmash of products with no clear strategy on how they blend into the rest of the mix on its Web site. The scattershot approach appears to have aggravated and confused many consumers who are gravitating to new Internet hot spots such as News Corp.'s MySpace.com and YouTube, which Google just bought for $1.76 billion.
Sunnyvale-based Yahoo believes it can get back on track by consolidating its operations into three groups focused on its audience, advertising network and behind-the-scenes technology.
The shake-up will reshuffle top management, entrusting Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker to fix the problems bedeviling Yahoo's advertising system and opening a job for an executive who will be hired to guide efforts to make Yahoo's Web site more useful and relevant.
At least two top executives won't be part of Yahoo's new agenda.
Lloyd Braun, a former television executive hired two years ago to run Yahoo's media division in Southern California, has already left the company. Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo's chief operating officer since 2002, will step down in March once the reorganization is complete.
Yahoo Chairman Terry Semel remains chief executive, although his job security and legacy at the company may be riding on how well this makeover pans out.
Once revered on Wall Street for reviving Yahoo after the dot-com meltdown, Semel has come under fire this year amid slowing profit growth that has battered the company's stock price.
Semel's fix-it strategy didn't impress investors Wednesday. Yahoo shares fell 57 cents to close at $26.86 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Yahoo's stock price has plunged by more than 30 percent so far this year, to wipe out nearly $20 billion in shareholder wealth.
The fallout might include pink slips for some of its 11,000 employees.
Banc of America Securities analyst Brian Pitz predicted in a Wednesday research note that Yahoo will consider pruning its payrolls next year as part of an effort to boost its profits.
Standard & Poor's analyst Scott Kessler also thinks Yahoo might clean house in its media division now that Braun is gone. "You have to wonder about the long-term future there," Kessler said. "You could see some paring down there."
Yahoo spokeswoman Kelly Delaney declined to comment about the chances of future layoffs, but Semel downplayed the possibility in a statement posted on the company's Web site. "Let me stress that we're organizing the company for growth and are continuing to hire great talent," he wrote.
Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president in charge of the company's communications products, made a case for 1,500 to 2,000 layoffs in a recent memo that was leaked to the media.
"For far too many employees, there is another person with dramatically similar and overlapping responsibilities," Garlinghouse wrote. "This slows us down and burdens the company with unnecessary costs."
That memo, which likened Yahoo's business recipe to peanut butter spread too thinly over toast, foreshadowed some of the actions taken in Tuesday's shake-up. But in his Web posting, Semel indicated that the reorganization began to take shape before Garlinghouse wrote his memo.
In an attempt to address it most pressing problem, Yahoo has been working on a series of improvements to its advertising formula. After promising to unveil the advertising change by the crucial holiday shopping season, Yahoo encountered unexpected hiccups that delayed any financial gains until next year.
Decker, a former Wall Street analyst who has been Yahoo's CFO for six years, is being entrusted to make sure the advertising upgrades pay off. The decision to put her in such a crucial job makes her a prime candidate to succeed the 63-year-old Semel.
"It's obvious Sue Decker is now the heir apparent," Kessler said. "I think (the board) may want to see how she does in an operational capacity before letting her move in as CEO."
Decker will be up to the challenges ahead, predicted Rob Solomon, a former Yahoo executive who left the company nearly a year ago to become CEO of SideStep, a Silicon Valley search engine focused on travel. "Sue Decker is brilliant, always the smartest person in whatever room she walks into," Solomon said.
Semel may have held on to his job for now because a change-in-command during the final weeks of the holiday shopping season probably would have rattled investors already antsy about the forthcoming improvements to the advertising model, Kessler said.
A former movie executive, Semel still has a residual of goodwill for lifting Yahoo out of the dot-com doldrums after he joined the company in May 2001.
Back then, Yahoo was floundering along with just about every other company whose business relied on the Internet. Semel turned things around in a traumatic reorganization that eliminated hundreds of jobs before engineering a series of key acquisitions that paid off as refurbished computer systems advertisers shifted more spending to the Internet.
This time, though, Yahoo's troubles seem to be largely self-inflicted, raising questions whether the company needs new blood to heal the wounds.
Yahoo Shakes Up Management and Company.
The Yahoo Panama implosion continues.
Summary of MarketWatch story with updates from Peak Positions
Yahoo CFO Decker to switch jobs, report directly to CEO Semel; COO resigns.
Yahoo Inc. is revamping its operations and reshuffling its executive ranks as the Internet giant struggles amid stiff competition from Google Inc., but the moves continue to fall far short of expectations.
The one-time $400 a share YHOO stock now trades at 26, and has fallen more than 30% this year. Yahoo will reorganize into three units, one focused on building its Internet audience, one that will deal with advertisers and publishers, and a third group that will develop technology and products for the other two units.
The turmoil at Yahoo includes the departure of Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig and Lloyd Braun, head of Yahoo's media content group. Braun was brought to Yahoo from Hollywood by Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel to create original news and entertainment content.
Susan Decker, who has served as Yahoo chief financial officer since 2000, will become head of the company's advertiser and publisher group, giving her control over nearly ALL of the company's revenue-generating businesses. Many believe Decker is to become Yahoo CEO.
Growth at Yahoo, which for years has owned the most-visited group of Web sites, has been eclipsed by Google, which has come to dominate the lucrative business of selling online ads alongside Internet search results.
Yahoo has grown unwieldy and bureaucratic, critics inside and outside the company have charged, and its offerings in the fast-growing segment of social networking sites have been outpaced by upstarts such as MySpace, now a unit of News Corp., and YouTube, acquired by Google (GOOG).
Giving more responsibility to Decker and the sudden departure of Rosensweig, who will leave at the end of March, may help Semel deflect loud crys for change at the top.
The moves are "very likely a necessary step that carries the potential for improved operational efficiencies at the company," Mahaney wrote in a note to clients.
Yahoo will begin a search for a new CFO to replace Decker and for an executive to head the Audience Group. The Technology Group will be led by Farzad Nazem, Chief Technology Officer at Yahoo since 1998. The heads of all three groups will report directly to Semel.
Still, Yahoo is in for a tough fight to regain its footing against Google, it's chief rival.
Yahoo's sales for the third quarter ended in September rose 20% to $1.12 billion, falling short of its initial forecast on weaker-than-expected online ad sales. By contrast, Google's third-quarter sales rose 70% to $2.69 billion, and its shares have climbed almost 20% this year.
Decker will continue to oversee Yahoo's Marketplaces business unit as part of the Advertiser & Publisher Group, which will focus on the "transformation of how advertisers connect with their target customers across the Internet."
Yahoo said it expects to complete the reorganization by the end of the first quarter, with the leadership changes to be effective Jan. 1. Decker will continue to serve as CFO while the company looks for a successor.
Semel said Yahoo plans to drive growth and profitability by creating "a full-fledged advertising network, with a marketplace that meets supply and demand both on Yahoo's valuable owned-and-operated network and across the entire Internet."
??? whatever ??? how about increasing the quality of Yahoo search results and driving more content relevance throughout the old and tired Yahoo keyword search system.
Improving search results might actually serve users and help Yahoo return improved search results, thereby driving search traffic, page views, SEM click thrus and market share. When will Yahoo stop trying to be all things to all users and instead return their focus to keyword search.
Keyword Search is only the second most popular online activity.
Yahoo still maintains dominance in the most popular online actitivy: email retrieval however, their decision to abandon keyword search continues to result in keyword searchers and market share abandoning Yahoo.
The e-world still remembers Terry Semel's and Yahoo's decision to augment and fill out Yahoo search results with Google search data. In turn Semel and Yahoo helped create Google Mania. Yahoo has been flaming out ever since.
The once proud, dominant keyword search market leader now has to fight with the many also rans for search scraps.
On their knees they remain at Yahoo tired and hungry poor souls seeking a mere slice of the pie they created.
Last month, in its third-quarter financial report, Yahoo noted that its offerings to users and businesses fell into four categories: search, marketplace, information and entertainment; and communications and connected life.
Frustrations at Yahoo were recently made clear in a memo written by Yahoo senior vice president Brad Garlinghouse in November and circulated to key executives.
In the so-called "Peanut Butter Manifesto," Garlinghouse claims Yahoo has a bloated management structure with little room for accountability and had spread its investments too thinly - like peanut butter across bread -- to be competitive.
Yahoo's business endeavors range from email to Internet search to online dating services and digital music.
"Change is needed at Yahoo, and it's needed soon," Garlinghouse wrote in the memo.
Among other efforts, Braun was able to get Yahoo to contribute original content to enhance its aggregated content.
Industry observers have said that Vince Broady or Scott Moore, who have reported to Braun, could be picked to take over for him. Earlier this year, Yahoo brought in GameSpot founder Broady to head the games and entertainment. Moore runs news, finance, technology, sports and lifestyle.
"Over the last two years, the Yahoo Media Group has developed and launched a ground-breaking template for the next generation of media experiences on the Internet," Braun said in a statement.
"There is much more to come in the months ahead. I am proud to have led this team of extraordinary professionals, and I wish Yahoo the greatest success in the future."
More developments are sure to occur at Yahoo as 2006 closes out.
The Yahoo Panama implosion continues.
Summary of MarketWatch story with updates from Peak Positions
Yahoo CFO Decker to switch jobs, report directly to CEO Semel; COO resigns.
Yahoo Inc. is revamping its operations and reshuffling its executive ranks as the Internet giant struggles amid stiff competition from Google Inc., but the moves continue to fall far short of expectations.
The one-time $400 a share YHOO stock now trades at 26, and has fallen more than 30% this year. Yahoo will reorganize into three units, one focused on building its Internet audience, one that will deal with advertisers and publishers, and a third group that will develop technology and products for the other two units.
The turmoil at Yahoo includes the departure of Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig and Lloyd Braun, head of Yahoo's media content group. Braun was brought to Yahoo from Hollywood by Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel to create original news and entertainment content.
Susan Decker, who has served as Yahoo chief financial officer since 2000, will become head of the company's advertiser and publisher group, giving her control over nearly ALL of the company's revenue-generating businesses. Many believe Decker is to become Yahoo CEO.
Growth at Yahoo, which for years has owned the most-visited group of Web sites, has been eclipsed by Google, which has come to dominate the lucrative business of selling online ads alongside Internet search results.
Yahoo has grown unwieldy and bureaucratic, critics inside and outside the company have charged, and its offerings in the fast-growing segment of social networking sites have been outpaced by upstarts such as MySpace, now a unit of News Corp., and YouTube, acquired by Google (GOOG).
Giving more responsibility to Decker and the sudden departure of Rosensweig, who will leave at the end of March, may help Semel deflect loud crys for change at the top.
The moves are "very likely a necessary step that carries the potential for improved operational efficiencies at the company," Mahaney wrote in a note to clients.
Yahoo will begin a search for a new CFO to replace Decker and for an executive to head the Audience Group. The Technology Group will be led by Farzad Nazem, Chief Technology Officer at Yahoo since 1998. The heads of all three groups will report directly to Semel.
Still, Yahoo is in for a tough fight to regain its footing against Google, it's chief rival.
Yahoo's sales for the third quarter ended in September rose 20% to $1.12 billion, falling short of its initial forecast on weaker-than-expected online ad sales. By contrast, Google's third-quarter sales rose 70% to $2.69 billion, and its shares have climbed almost 20% this year.
Decker will continue to oversee Yahoo's Marketplaces business unit as part of the Advertiser & Publisher Group, which will focus on the "transformation of how advertisers connect with their target customers across the Internet."
Yahoo said it expects to complete the reorganization by the end of the first quarter, with the leadership changes to be effective Jan. 1. Decker will continue to serve as CFO while the company looks for a successor.
Semel said Yahoo plans to drive growth and profitability by creating "a full-fledged advertising network, with a marketplace that meets supply and demand both on Yahoo's valuable owned-and-operated network and across the entire Internet."
??? whatever ??? how about increasing the quality of Yahoo search results and driving more content relevance throughout the old and tired Yahoo keyword search system.
Improving search results might actually serve users and help Yahoo return improved search results, thereby driving search traffic, page views, SEM click thrus and market share. When will Yahoo stop trying to be all things to all users and instead return their focus to keyword search.
Keyword Search is only the second most popular online activity.
Yahoo still maintains dominance in the most popular online actitivy: email retrieval however, their decision to abandon keyword search continues to result in keyword searchers and market share abandoning Yahoo.
The e-world still remembers Terry Semel's and Yahoo's decision to augment and fill out Yahoo search results with Google search data. In turn Semel and Yahoo helped create Google Mania. Yahoo has been flaming out ever since.
The once proud, dominant keyword search market leader now has to fight with the many also rans for search scraps.
On their knees they remain at Yahoo tired and hungry poor souls seeking a mere slice of the pie they created.
Last month, in its third-quarter financial report, Yahoo noted that its offerings to users and businesses fell into four categories: search, marketplace, information and entertainment; and communications and connected life.
Frustrations at Yahoo were recently made clear in a memo written by Yahoo senior vice president Brad Garlinghouse in November and circulated to key executives.
In the so-called "Peanut Butter Manifesto," Garlinghouse claims Yahoo has a bloated management structure with little room for accountability and had spread its investments too thinly - like peanut butter across bread -- to be competitive.
Yahoo's business endeavors range from email to Internet search to online dating services and digital music.
"Change is needed at Yahoo, and it's needed soon," Garlinghouse wrote in the memo.
Among other efforts, Braun was able to get Yahoo to contribute original content to enhance its aggregated content.
Industry observers have said that Vince Broady or Scott Moore, who have reported to Braun, could be picked to take over for him. Earlier this year, Yahoo brought in GameSpot founder Broady to head the games and entertainment. Moore runs news, finance, technology, sports and lifestyle.
"Over the last two years, the Yahoo Media Group has developed and launched a ground-breaking template for the next generation of media experiences on the Internet," Braun said in a statement.
"There is much more to come in the months ahead. I am proud to have led this team of extraordinary professionals, and I wish Yahoo the greatest success in the future."
More developments are sure to occur at Yahoo as 2006 closes out.
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