Category Archives: blogs

Myspace users are getting older according to Comscore. Danah doubts it.

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Myspace users are older than you think says a new comscore report. Yet Yahoo and Berkeley’s Danah Boyd, almost certainly the sharpest and most knowledgeable researcher in this space, is challenging Comscore’s finding.

It’s good to question methodology, but I think Comscore is “correct” here though Dana’s right that we need more slicing and dicing of data to assess the significance of this finding.

1) I’m pretty sure the methodology is very strong in terms of demographic specifics. I think they have a pool of people they interview or measure regularly and then mine this data from this controlled and “known”, but very large online population.

2) Users *are* visitors! They are using the term “users” in the normal metrics sense of “unique visitors to the site”. Dana is making a distinction between users and visitors as active vs passive participants.

We’d want to see more info about time spent at the site to generalize more about this but I don’t think this time issue would refute the “user demographic” they are talking about.

Of course, if young users spend 10x the time at the site as older ones it would make the Comscore finding less important. They don’t seem to suggest this is the case however, so until further notice I’m going to keep thinking “wow, Myspace is getting to be an olderspace!”

Update: Fred’s take on this seems to be that method is OK but this needs more elaboration in the press which he thinks is “conflating” the terms user and visitor. He agrees with Danah that “user” and “unique visitor” are not the same. I’ve never seen anybody make that distinction but perhaps we need a new term?

Seems to me that they have been working with *subscriber data* and thus are surprised by this user data. Subscribers are probably are younger than visitors and spend a lot more time at the site. Relevant, but does not dismiss the Comscore findings.

Update:  Mike Rubin at Comscore comments here.     Appears my analysis was correct – Comscore’s data is solid but reflects visitors and not registered users, and young people stay on longer.

Mark Cuban to Google – you are crazy! JoeDuck to Google – just show me some money!

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Mark Cuban, no stranger to online video having made about a billion in that field, challenges Google’s sanity in the YouTube deal here.

It seems to me Cuban’s been the most insightful of those reviewing this deal and my first reaction is “brilliant stuff from an insider”, but I also respect how clever Google is and will continue to be at re-railing the online train.

Big producers will do big deals with Google as they are right now.   The growing community of small time content producers (e.g me) is a lot more willing to share and forget about copyright encumbrances *as long as you cut me in on the action*.

If Google can monetize my stuff better or close to as much as I can then more power to Google.   I’m rooting for Yahoo! winning the monetizing battle though because …. I like them better and have stock.   But there’s room for both, and I think we’ll see in the coming years that the rising tide of online ads will lift most of the ships.

I’m confident I’m speaking for 80%, and probably 98%, of the long tail when I say that the long tail, especially in video, is going to attach to the entity that can best monetize their work be it professional full length movies or stupid cat trick clips.

Can the other 2% of content people sue them?  Sure, but not painfully enough to stop the online video train o’ progress, a train that’s sure to bring us the most garish, irrelevant, superficial, and poorly produced video yet seen on earth and then find a way to turn a few bucks on showing it off to people.    God bless America!

Web 2.0 Metrics? Aren’t we still trying to figure out Web 0.1 metrics?

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Jeremy often asks the questions people will be asking next year. Here, Zawodny notes the difficulties as Web 2.0 brings a lot more than pageviews to the browser table and cites this article about how pageviews are problematic as a measure of online success.

There are challenges galore as we move to Web 2.0 analysis. The YouTube deal alone showcases how irrelevant a ‘page view’ may become to full analysis. There, advertisers will probably want a small clip inserted before the video as well as pay per click or aquistion modes of advertising – at least until all advertisers start demanding cost per sale terms.

I think commercial metrics will (must) trend towards firmly establishing costs per sale and/or customer aquisition. At the point where that gets good the advertiser really does not need more detail. Much of the current advertising mis-analysis industry is based on analysis of things that only indirectly lead to sales.

In many cases I’ve been floored by how mathematically unsound so called “objective” conversion studies can be. In Travel and economic development this relates to the fact that those sponsoring the studies typically benefit from high ROI numbers so a cottage industry of “impact inflation” studies and firms has developed that serves the vested interests rather than the taxpayers.

Non commercially focused website metrics are even more complex than commercial, since many bloggers would probably rather be read by a handful of movers and shakers who provide thoughtful commentary than by legions of regular Joes.

A blog read by all G8 world leaders would be about 1000x more influential in terms of changing history than one read by American Idol fans, but would probably have limited commercial value. How do you measure that? Perhaps Yahoo or Google need a “BigWhig Rank” that pulls in personal data and assigns importance to the … person?

Hmmm – they already have been nabbing your search streams so maybe next they’ll take your … soul! I think that is OK with me as long as it’s …. measurable!

Online News Association to Arrington: Hey, let’s get Mikey!

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Poor Mike Arrington. From his blog it sounds like Mike was the token sacrificial lamb at the recent Online News Association conference where his comments were not taken well by the crowd of what sounds like mostly conventional journalists (or conventional *thinkers*) hoping to get a grip on the sea change going on, and going online, right now. They should listen to Mike carefully, because he’s been good at seeing the future. (ummm except Edgeio, which probably won’t fly).

There’s a lot of news in the news business but journalists are often missing the critical factors which include blogs, user interaction, and emphasis on real time reporting in real time from real people who are making that news themselves or direct witness to that news (e.g. who really wants a journalist in the middle when you have webcams on all the parties in the dispute?)

I remember how intense Mike got at Mix06 in his remarks about the future of offline Yellow pages, telling them “You are DEAD!”, and I can only imagine how the ONA folks reacted to his insights about the future of news and media in the online world.

His real sin was to become an expert early on in the Web 2.0 world and to profit from that expertise. Nothing pisses people off like somebody figuring things out early and profiting from that knowledge.

Good for him, but he better stick to events like Yahoo Hack Day or Mashup Camp if he wants a warm reception from like minded folks….folks who also understand that the changes are only beginning and will rock the news world like it’s never been rocked before.

Carnival of Marketing … the 7 Weekly Wisps of WWW Wisdom are …

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Here are my choices of the seven best of eleven entries in this week’s Blog Carnival of Marketing. Please give your feedback here and/or to the authors. If YOU have an article to submit for NEXT week’s carnival send it on in via the form or to jhunkins@gmail.com. This site is hosting the Carnival of Marketing again on October 15.

* Tam Hanna presents BenqSiemens pushes the nationalism button
posted at TamsPalm-the Palm OS Blog.

* Jim Cronin presents No Time To Blog? Bloggers’ Block? 6 Strategies To Developing Quick and Beneficial Blog Content
posted at The Real Estate Tomato.

* David Maister presents davidmaister.com > Passion, People and Principles > What Would the Client Say?
posted at Passion, People and Principles.

*Eliot presents Rise of the Niche: Survivor, Web 2.0, Feminist Blogs
posted at Red Inked.

* David Lorenzo presents Five Keys to Sales Leadership
posted at Sales Intensity.

* Adnan presents Pay Per Product – Make Your Own or Affiliatise
posted at Blogtrepreneur | Entrepreneur Blog.

* Todd presents Have you ever considered that you are not good enough?
posted at Aridni.

All posts are here 

When too much is not enough and a little is just right. Google > Yahoo

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Today a very sharp friend said that even though he uses Yahoo mail and some of their default screen navigation, he always uses Google to search. Why? Because Google is not cluttered and makes it very easy to leave Google to visit external sites. Yahoo, especially Yahoo News, he felt, tries to keep the user at Yahoo too aggressively.

A similar point about the ease of navigating to external sites was recently made by Mike Arrington when talking about Web 2.0, noting that it’s important to let folks feel they can easily leave the site for other web locations if you want return visits and credibility.

Relevancy, conspicuously, was not the concern of my friend. He just didn’t like the Yahoo search user experience. I agree and realize that for me it’s the fact that with Google I can get and visually scan *a lot more results* much faster than with normal Yahoo search. Like my friend it’s not the relevancy as much as the navigation that keeps me at Google despite the fact I own Yahoo (well, actually I own about one two-millionth of Yahoo). I don’t trust either engine to give me great results, but I know that I’ll usually find what I need somewhere in the first few pages of sites. Google makes it easier to preview a lot of sites fast.

I have stronger negative feelings about most of the travel sites. Online Travel 1.0 is a nightmarish blend of booking screens, pitches for Hawaii and cruise packages, and tourism sites all trying to convince you they are the only destination both offline and online.

It’s particulary frustrating when sites expect me to learn their navigation and nomenclature just to use their damn site, especially if I’m trying to preview dozens of websites for a trip! Most of the worst offenders are overproduced by expensive print media firms using the pretense they know about “online marketing”. In fact most big firms have about as much web savvy as an inebriated, obnoxious, and arrogant tourist and appear to be designing the sites for …..themselves.

Like most users I’d prefer a Craigslist format so I can easily jump to the information I need rather than wading through popups, pictures, video, and other nonsense when I’m trying to plan a trip. With some exceptions the mantra “just the facts please” would serve online travel promotion better than the foolish extravagances that confuse users and also search engines which struggle to find meaning in garrish flash and pages filled with 100k high resolution photos.

What will Travel sites look like as Web 2.0 shakes out? I’m optimistic that they’ll be much, much better, and hoping to figure out how before it’s obvious to everybody.

SearchMob, like DIGG, is struggling to avoid mob rule.

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One of my favorite blogs is John Battelle’s Searchblog. John provides the best and the most intelligent analysis and discussion focusing on the search industry.

So, when John (and his readers) started experimenting with a digg-like reader-controlled “SearchMob” run using the very clever Pligg community software to provide reviews and links to search related news and articles I was very optimistic. In fact I quickly became one of the top submitters and voters at SearchMob.

Although I write a lot about search issues I have avoided posting my own articles there. I don’t think there’s a problem posting a few of your own pieces, but the system becomes fairly useless if the bulk of activity is self-promotional. This appears to be a problem at SearchMob now.

Of the “top stories” listed this afternoon it appears that every single one was posted by the author. It also appears that some of these authors have several SearchMob accounts so they can vote for their own stories which pushes them to the top.

There are some easy spoofs of the current system, which does not require a log in to vote, that make it easy to push your own articles to the top of the heap, and I fear this is driving the top stories rather than reader interest. This also keeps “legitimate” stories from appearing where they can get more votes, further undermining the integrity of the system.

Solutions need to be largely spoof proof, especially in a reader community filled with SEO specialists. I think requiring complete contact information for anybody posting articles might help to make abuses easier to track. Also it may be necessary for the community to start hassling those who are using this too opportunistically via the discussion feature, though this does not seem to be the intended use of “discussion”.

Here are the top 4 stories now, all appear to have been submitted by the … author and most have questionable vote totals:

An Investment Approach to Marketing
http://googlejet.blogspot.com

Mobile Sites for Information
http://www.resourceshelf.com

A social news service for free advertising
http://targetyournews.com

Google Checkout Now Working with Froogle
http://www.oneparkavenuereality.com

Carnival of Marketing October 8th

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Carnival of Marketing

The rumors are true. The Carnival of Marketing started by Noah during a flash of brilliant inspiration moves here on October 8th and October 15th. Thanks to the many who’ve sent in articles already. I’ll pick the seven “winners” soon and post them and links to their sites on October 8th. Send your best marketing article or links to good marketing articles to jhunkins@gmail.com.

Yahoo Hack Day – you should have been there! I should have been there!

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Yahoo’s Hack Day was so successful I have yet to read anything but positive reports – in fact most are downright glowing with enthusiasm for this mashup fest down at the Yahoo mother ship in Sunnyvale. I wish I could trade my lackluster experience at this year’s Google Party for a back-in-time ticket to Yahoo’s Hack Day.

Gordon over at GetLucky.net, a Yahoo employee, provides what seems to me several key insights about Hack day, but more imporantly about why Yahoo, not Google, is the company to watch.

Of course, until Yahoo Panama gets their *ASS IN GEAR* with a high quality contextual advertising paradigm, Wall street will continue to think that they suck ….

Gordon on Hack Day:
… the stuff that we do better than our competitors may have a chance to shine in the spotlight, in front of the audience that matters most. Much of the mindshare that Google has captured through applications like the GMaps API, etc. has been held because of the nature of convenience. Once a coder builds an application on top of a specific interface, switching to another API requires some real motivation…

emphasis belongs to me, the insights belong to Gordon though I’ve written about this stuff several times as well. Yahoo could wind up “owning” 2.0., which is a cool type of ownership where the big guy facilitates millions of long tail, little guy developments and transactions and publishing enterprises. The big guy shares *most* of the revenue with the little guys but the volume creates huge wealth for the big companies and modest wealth for the smaller ones. Users are rewarded with better content, rich interactive experiences, noninvasive advertising, and encyclopedic information. When 2.0 is done right everybody plays, everybody wins.