Artificial Intuition
Convergence08 was a great conference with many interesting people and ideas. Thankfully the number of crackpots was very low, and even the “new age” mysticism stuff was at a minimum. Instead I found hundreds of authors, doctors, biologists, programmers, engineers, physicists, and more clear thinking folks all interested in how the new technologies will shape our world in ways more profound than we have ever experienced before.
My favorite insights came from Monica Anderson’s presentation on her approach to AI programming, which she called “Artificial Intuition“. Unlike all other approaches to AI I’m familiar with Anderson uses biological evolution as her main analogs for conceptualizing human intelligence. I see this approach as almost a *given* if you have a good understanding of human thought, but it’s actually not a popular conceptual framework at all.
It has always surprised me how poorly many computer programmers understand even rudimentary biological concepts such as the underlying simplicity of the human neocortex and the basic principles of evolution which I’d argue emphatically have defined *every single aspect* of our human intelligence over a slow and clumsy, hit and miss process operating over millions of years. I think programmers tend to focus on mathematics and rule systems which are great modelling systems but probably a very poor analog for intelligence. This focus has in many ways poisoned the well of understanding about what humans and other animals do when they … think… which I continue to maintain is “not all that special”.
….. more on this later over at Technology Report …..
SES San Jose California: Search Secrets Session
The California Chamber is talking about their marketing strategies. Local numbers generate more activity than 800 numbers, although he seems to be assuming this means you should choose a local number for your biz over an 800 number. In this case I doubt that correlation is causation - probably locals are more likely to act on a Chamber issue.
The California Chamber looks like they are focusing mostly on PPC rather than Organic SEO.
Eric Enge’s [who is a killer foosball player!] has a bunch of excellent tips but I missed part of his presentation due to blog technical difficulties…. here are a few items:
Google Webmaster Tools - get some free links by finding malformed URLs and 301 redirecting them to the correct page. [note - generally Google passes authority along with 301 redirections]
Find dead and bad links and try to contact the site to fix them so you have a real, quality incoming link.
Use MSN Search Funnels for link development.
RIchard Zwicky:
Track PPC and Organic traffic independently - results may differ and you want to focus resources most effectively.
Links as (the?) most valuable factor in SEO.
Regional links are important for traffic from those regions. Hugely important, but overlooked.
Your competitors are probably lazier tha you are.
Don’t use black hat SEO but know it so you can defend against black hat attacks.
Hmm - now He’s outlining a hijack scheme where you basically set up a fake and heavy black hat SEO site for your competition, then just before this site is banned you redirect to the competitor site and he says the 301 bad juice would flow to them and get them banned.
my notes:
1) This is not consistent with my understanding of 301 unless he means that Google *sometimes* passes along bad PR if they think the offender is working with you. ie the fake sites have tricked Google into thinking they are part of the competitors web strategy. Simply passing bad PR via 301 would mean you could very easily kill any site simply by setting up a bad neighborhood and link it to competitor using 301 redirects. This was an early redirection issue, to my understanding fixed by Google after abuses by black hats.
2) Don’t do this. Not only is it unethical, but in my opinion courts will soon start cracking down on schemes like this as fraud, possibly even racketeering. Courts do not yet understand search but when they do you’ll see some massive lawsuits against people who interfere with their competitors this aggressively.
[
Inside Intelligence Track
The Best Kept Secrets to Search
Secrets of paid and organic search? Sure, they’re out there. Join us for a no-holds-barred interactive session in which veteran search engine marketers disclose some of their favorite search engine optimization and marketing tips, tricks, and secrets. While there’s no replacement for old-fashioned hard work, getting the inside scoop and shortcuts to search success never hurt.
- Katee Crawford, Online & E-mail Marketing Specialist, California Chamber of Commerce
- Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting
- Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO, Enquisite
- Jamie Smith, CEO, Engine Ready
Measuring Success in a 2.0 World
Avinash Kaushik from Google and Market Motive: Get on the train or get run over. Relevant metrics are changing dramatically and are an essential part of your online strategy. RSS as the key blog metric, because this is the ultimate permission marketing environment where you push content out to your readers.
Jim Sterne: Web and search metrics are changing the game from reporting to analysis to promotions to “hearts and minds” marketing.
Mathew Baily had the most entertaining yet relevant presentation I’ve seen in some time - probably not as helpful as case studies but brilliant! Analytics and Star Trek: 1.0 analytics endless cycle of mundane reporting. This runs you down. You want 2.0 analytics! Star trek death conversion rate? = 14% mortality, mostly among red shirted actors. Need more context which is where story-driven analytics comes in to answer the detailed questions. Ask questions - best human tool.
Marshall Sponder of Monster.com:
www.webmetricsguru.com
www.theanalyticsguru.com
Measuring Success in a 2.0 World
How do you know if you’ve been successful with search engines and your website in general? You can check your “rank” at search engines for particular keywords, analyze log files to see the actual terms people used to reach your website, or make the ultimate jump and “close the loop” by measuring sales conversions and ROI. This panel explores both classic and cutting-edge techniques to measure success, what statistics you should really care about, ways to be more strategically focused, and how to drive increased revenue for your business.
- Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO, Enquisite
- Jim Sterne, Target Marketing & Chairman, Web Analytics Association
- Matthew Bailey, President, SiteLogic
- Avinash Kaushik, Author, Blogger, Analytics Evangelist, Google
- Marshall Sponder, Senior Web Analyst, Monster.com
SES San Jose Exhibit Hall Opens
SES San Jose Exhibit Hall Opens
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck
The SES San Jose search conference hosts dozens of providers of internet business services who exhibit on two of the conferences four days. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft are all here as are many search optimization firm, search analytics appications, and even some consumer focused websites.
SES San Jose Search Conference
SES San Jose Search Conference
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck
With 6000 attendees, Search Engine Strategies in San Jose California remains the world’s largest search marketing conference, bringing search marketing experts and marketing teams from all over the globe.
I’m finding out the breakdown of attendance tomorrrow, as some of the 6000 are only here with exhibit hall passes which do admit to the keynotes but not the regular sessions.
This picture is from this morning’s session on the Asian and South American search markets.
SES San Jose - Lee Siegel Keynote
Lee Siegel is about to speak here at SES San Jose. He’s the author of “Against the Machine” and a senior editor at The New Republic, and a noted critic of the new media, primarily because he feels anonymity is a threat to intelligent, enlightened conversation.
Although I’m sympathetic to Lee’s points about how abusive the online world can be, and how foolish it is to consider as sacred the hate speech and the junk banter that passes as conversation, he’s missing two key features of the new conversational media that effectively sweep away much of the significance of his legitimate concerns.
First, the high tolerance for abusive and threatening language has become something of a new standard, especially for younger commenters. I don’t like it either, but for many writers this does not reflect the type of threat it would under other circumstances. It is not appropriate to apply old interpretations of this language to the modern usage.
Second is that focusing on the defects of blogging and new media distracts us from the profound and positive changes in communication - changes that represent the early stages of truly democratic and massively participatory conversations.
I don’t think Siegel is so much *wrong* as he is making fairly insignificant points about the new media. I’d certainly agree that there is a danger whenever people are stifled. For me the outrageous online treatment of Kathy Sierra, a noted blogger,is the exception that proves the rule. These cases are very few, and in a broad sense are eclipsed by the thousands of new voices coming online *every day*.
So, is there value in paying attention to these problems? Sure. Should this drive our understanding and appreciation of the most profound transformation in human communication history?
Nope.
SES San Jose Blog Coverage
Although it’s fun to attend conferences like SES you can learn an enormous amount reading the many folks who are live blogging the sessions here in San Jose. If you read this and I haven’t added your blog please do so in the comment section.
Search Engine Watch (official blog for SES)
Tech Macro News
Google Dance at the GooglePlex. Search Engine Strategies Event
Google Dance at the GooglePlex
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck
Last year they had “Candy Bars” where you could fill a bag with all sorts of great candy. I brought one home for my daughter who now dreams of going to a Google party.
The Google Dance has been going on for several years as part of the SES Conference series. Held at the Googleplex the party features a huge buffet, food, wine, and beer stations all over the Google commons. For those who can’t separate work from leisure (which would be most tech folks), there are demonstrations of new technologies from Google and a “meet the engineers” face to face talk that is always very enjoyable.
SES San Jose Countdown
In terms of internet search the really big and influential conference is - without a doubt - SES San Jose.
WebmasterWorld Pubcon and the new SMX Conference series by Danny Sullivan (who more than anybody was the architect of the SES empire) offer similar content, SES remains the key conference venue for search marketing professionals.
I’ll be live blogging the conference and I’ll even try to get a few real time pix out from Tuesday night’s Google Party hosted at the GooglePlex. In many ways the “Google Dance” is the highlight of the search year, when Google hosts conference attendees (including folks who just sign up for free exhibit passes), as well as tons of Google employees. The food is great and it’s hard to beat free beer, ice cream, sno cones, and candy but the real highlight is chatting with Google search engineers who with a few exceptions like the amazing Matt Cutts, … don’t seem to get out much.
Digital Hollywood at CES
I thought I’d repost part of this note from the Digital Hollywood folks at CES 2009. They run several of the sessions that deal with the convergence of the online world with TV, Film, and more.
For me one of the most powerful technology themes is the fact that TV remains the big kahuna of advertising even as awareness grows that online advertising is far more effective - at least in its common pay per click form. It remains to be seen if video clip advertising, such as what Google is experimenting with at YouTube, will ever take off as a major revenue source for publishers. It certainly has been underwhelming so far, I think in part simply because it is performing as poorly as almost *all forms of offline advertising*. The difference is that online metrics allow us to monitor performance in ways we have not been able to do before, and perhaps more importantly the online metrics help disconnect the analyst from the marketeer.
In travel it is very commonplace for the same group running the ads to do the analysis of their effectiveness. This is a preposterous state of affairs, yet it persists. There are now some sneaky variations on the theme which include specialized “travel marketing” agencies that appear to have methods that inflate effectiveness. Why? This prevents them from biting the hands that feed their research.
—————— DIGITAL HOLLYWOOD CES 2009 —————————
The agenda - and call for speakers - for the CES conferences- January 7-10, 2009 in Las Vegas Reinventing Advertising, Mobile Entertainment, Game Power & Digital Hollywood at CES, Las Vegas Convention Center, see http://www.digitalhollywood.com/CES2009.html
is now posted.
Speakers are being booked now. Your submissions are welcome.
We are proud to be organizing the most significant conferences at the most significant and largest trade show in America. CES has over 140,000 attendees, over 4500 press, over 1000 financial analysts and over 2700 exhibitors.
We are organizing four tracks at CES:
Digital Hollywood Events at CES
Session Keys:
RA Reinventing Advertising
ME - Mobile Entertainment
GP - Game Power
DH - Digital Hollywood
-
-
Recent Comments
Tech5 from Dvorak- Should Nokia Buy Yahoo?Obama picks tech team. All seem like government hacks. RIAA gets the state of Tennessee to throw away $10 million on spying on its students. MacArthur Foundation says Intern socializing is a good thing. New Honda Supercar, funny-looking. Google pulls plug on the unknown "Lively." Analyst suggests that Nokia should be Yahoo.
- Intel Stock Goes Into the ToiletNow that Yahoo is gone under $10 Microsoft is not interested anymore. Apparently the company is not interested when it's a bargain. MSFT decides to do anti-virus for some unknown reason. Company also unable to promote Silverlight against Adobe Flash. HP story from yesterday actually explained. I run down all the stocks that are in the tank.
- USB 3.0 Finalized at 4.8 GbpsSun Microsystems to fire 6000. Crazy wording in FT. Jerry Yang quits. AOL kills Homestead. HO Says sales are heading up, not down like Intel thinks. USB 3. released (finalized) today. I highlight two stories about USB 3.0 showing how bad today's tech coverage has become.
- Should Nokia Buy Yahoo?
Please subscribe to the feed
