Getting Granular: The DigitalGrit Blog

Two Weeks til SES New York!

Our favorite home town show, SES, returns -- and in warmer weather this time!

If you're going to Search Engine Strategies New York, look for DigitalGrit at booth 1416. We're on the main floor this year (whoohoo!), and we'll be the extremely attractive people standing at the stunningly gorgeous orange booth.

You can't miss us.

Search the Web with K-Fed - Tabloid Star Launches Vanity Search Engine

I thought iWon was an original approach to search a few years back...but now we have the vanity engine. And who better to kickoff the trend than fledging rap star and tabloid darling, Kevin Federline.

Yes, fresh off the Britney Spears gravy train, K-Fed launched his own search engine las week. (Ya gotta hand it to the guy - he's innovative with his income sources!)

Powered by Yahoo and offered through Prodege (which, I thought was a fundraising tool utilizing search?), Search With Kevin offers prizes for searchers, including CDs, T-shirts and autographed photos. 

The editors of MediaPost's Search Insider have vastly different opinions on Kevin's foray into search. Gord Hotchkiss seemed dangerously close to vomiting on his keyboard. David Berkowitz may have actually won an 8x10 of K-Fed.

I have to side with Berkowitz in his overall view of Prodege's offering (which, as Hotchkiss points out, has been used to promote Wynonna Judd, Andrew Dice Clay and Meatloaf) - Let the market decide. If there really is a place for vanity search -- and I'm sure there is -- the fan base will be there.

And frankly, I think the interface on Search With Kevin is really nice -- if you don't mind Kevin Federline's mug topping the SERPs. I may just make it my homepage, if only because I truly enjoy freaking out my co-workers.

Yahoo Signs First Mobile Partners

I have to admit, I thought mobile marketing would be further along by now...but Yahoo has taken its first steps to get things speeding along. According to Reuters:

The Internet media company said it plans to offer what it calls Yahoo Mobile Publisher Services, a suite of services to place targeted advertisements in response to searches consumers perform on mobile Web browsers.

The company said beyond advertising that would run on its own Web pages, it is working with three initial partners with established mobile audiences.

The Yahoo Mobile Ad Network will include MobiTV, an early leader in delivering TV to mobile phones, Norway's Opera, whose browser is featured on many phones in Europe and Asia, and Go2, a U.S. yellow pages service for mobile phone users. The first ads will run in the second quarter.

It's exciting stuff.  Now to get things moving for real, more agencies need to get on board (a lot of retailers are chomping at the bit for this stuff) and providers need to start doing a better job of bundling mobile Internet services.

Google Pay Per Action in Beta

The rumours were true. Googles PPA Beta went live earlier this week. It's a pretty cool model, and (as Andy Beal points out) likely to make CJ and LinkShare a little uneasy. (Andy also mentions that, per his conversations with Goog, they're not looking to compete in the affiliate space. And yet, they are.)

Basically, you're paying for the actions you define -- like a new subscription, a sale, a webinar registration, whatever. Right now it's only available in AdWords/AdSense - which is great because you can experiment with a budget cap. You may also have to use Google's tracking, which makes it a little inconvenient if you've already got proprietary or third-party tracking in place.

Nonetheless - pretty cool. Read more about it here...and here are some snippets from the FAQs.

Statsaholic is Alexaholic (or vice/versa)

If you're addicted to Web stats (especially yours v. your competitors'), you've probably had Alexaholic bookmarked for the last year, too.

Believe it or not, I've always thought this geekily fun tool was owned by Amazon...but it seems I was wrong. According to TechCrunch, Amazon has tried more than once to put an end to the fun. To avoid further trouble, Alexaholic has changed it's name to Statsaholic.

TechCrunch suggests the service would be wise to beef up its  offering with even more third-party stats. Mmmm. More yummy stats. Yes, please.

Google Phone in the Works

Okay gadget-lovers: If pictures of the upcoming iPhone had you drooling, the new Google phone should get your salivary glands working over time. (photo courtesy of Slashgear)

Rumours are rampant that the ubiquitous Internet company is positioning itself to truly rule the mobile Web. From Reuters:

Google isn't commenting directly on leaks from Europe and the United States which describe a low-cost, Internet-connected phone with a color, wide-screen design. Newspaper and blog reports in recent months have Google shopping its phone design to potential mobile phone manufacturing partners in Asia.

"Mobile is an important area for Google," Google spokeswoman Erin Fors said on Friday. "We remain focused on creating applications and establishing and growing partnerships with industry leaders to develop innovative services for users worldwide. However, we have nothing further to announce."

Slashgear translates and quotes Google's Isabella Aguilera:

“A part of the time our engineers the we have devoted to the investigation of a mobile phone to access information”Isabel Aguilera (badly translated)

Pretty cool. Hope they hook up with Verizon Wireless...

When did "opt-out" become a best practice?

I need a moment -or a paragraph - to rant.  As I highly professional business blogger (nosering notwithstanding) it's not something I generally make a practice of, but on this fine Monday, I'm going to make an exception. Here's my issue:

When did it become okay to preselect subscriptions for visitors to your ecommerce site? Wasn't "opt-in" always the way to go?

Back in my early days in this industry, I worked for one of the original, fastest-growing B2B online pubs. We adhered to best practices like zealots, and we even penned a few of them ourselves.

Now, I realize that I'm getting old and that 2000 was a long time ago, but I could have *sworn* that email marketing was strictly OPT-IN. Opt-out, as I recall, fell under "worst practices."

There's a reason for this. While preselecting subscriptions for your visitors upon checkout will undoubtedly boost your numbers, you're not likely to cultivate QUALITY leads in this way. The travel newsletter (to which I was just unwittingly subscribed as I booked a hotel) will either be deleted promptly before it's read, or - if I'm feeling particularly ambitious - I'll simply unsubscribe as soon as I see it.

Had I seen an offer that appealed to me, I would have opted in. I've opted-in for tons of industry newsletters, a few cool parenting emails and a handful of other niche publications. What Orbitz has just crammed into my inbox is of no interest to me because I don't travel much. I use their site, among others, to book rooms for the sales team when I send them out to industry events. So I won't care if they've got cruise discounts next month, nor will I care if Jamaica's on sale. Their emails are of no interest to me. I didn't opt in, and I'm not buyin'.

I'm a waste of email.

The principal behind best practices in all online marketing channels is basically this: Be respectful. Don't piss people off. That holds for email, search, blogging, everything.

The idea of opt-in only emails may be an old one, but it's still good -- and it's still a best practice.