Twittaholics Unanonymous

Yesterday I posted a Twitter message about how my recurring addiction to campaign analytics was causing me a measure of personal distress. Addiction is not the sort of thing one wants to talk about in public. In most circumstances, addictions are highly debilitating. It’s pretty easy to spot the addiction when you find yourself referring to referral stats three to six times per minute. For what it’s worth, I haven’t checked stats at all since I began this paragraph. ’scuse me for a sec…

OK. Thanks for your patience. In case you were wondering, I just had to check a few numbers and found I am pretty happy with them. A new wave of Tweets was issued a few minutes ago and several outstanding members of our small legion of followers have taken the time to reTweet them. That happy circumstance confirmed, I can feel my heart rate receding back to its normal rate of 60 someodd beats per minute. I am resisting the urge to look at the landing page stats until our team-meeting later today. Having people around me when I look should serve to dampen my pie-eyed child-at-Christmas reaction to numbers. I am a mature professional web marketer and I can exercise self-control when I need… I need. hmmmm. OK, ’scuse me. BRB.

What most surprised me yesterday about what could only be interpreter by my followers as a Tweet for Help was how many respondents actually sympathized with me. I figured they would despise me for morphing into the low-down stats addict I seem to have become. It seems they too are statistically addicted to campaign stats and they gleefully reached out to my message about campaign stat addiction (at least, according to my stats). Informed minds love company it seems.

In rare cases, such as with the late journalist Hunter S. Thompson, embracing our addictions can be a path to success. For web marketers, knowing who is doing what, when and where, and then being able to ascribe correct values to the next questions, why and how is critical. For instance, I am pleased to know that nearly 70% of those who have responded to our Tweets live in the United States. Another 8% live in Canada. Those are the folks most likely to buy the service we’re selling.

Furthermore, I have happily created spreadsheet after spreadsheet detailing data about what times draw the greatest response and which messages prompt the most action. My brain is practically salivating at the thought of gathering enough data to start creating line graphs. mmmmmm….. line graphs make the world a better place.

Unfortunately, I can’t expect to have enough data to make a remotely useful or even interesting line graph a few more days. There’s something to look forward to thought the prospect of a weekend suffering delayed satisfaction syndrome is daunting. It’s ok. In the words of the great Hunter S. Thompson, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” I’m already a pro. I can deal with any weirdness thrown at me by my lack of useful line graphs. I’ll have enough data soon enough. Until then, I can satisfy my urges with little peaks at the raw numbers. Just a short glance, mind you. I do have real work to do.

Increasingly, our society is rightly starting to view addiction as a disease rather than a personal weakness. To tell the truth, I don’t really feel much dis-ease when I comb through campaign stats. I feel rather good actually. It’s the obsession I have an issue with. Perhaps that sort of obsessiveness is useful to my employers. They seem to think it is at any rate. But it is a relatively beautiful day here and I am spending way too much of what could otherwise be free time examining stats. At least they’re good ones.

Twitter Hole Open for Hackers

Twitter has a hole in its coding which potentially exposes millions of accounts to malicious hackers. A security expert based in Florida says he has found a security flaw in Adobe Flash which could allow hackers to see the passwords of Twitter users.

Senior security analyst Mike Bailey of Foreground Security in Orlando says he found a problem in the way Twitter’s website is coded which could allow hackers to exploit a well known vulnerability in Flash.

Adobe has known about the exploit since it was originally found in 2006 and has taken steps to inform programmers on how to handle it. Adobe has also posted warnings for webmasters who use Flash however many do not know about them.

According to Bailey, it shouldn’t take Twitter too long to fix the problem by slightly altering the way its website is coded. Twitter might by now have already fixed the problem. Bailey claims to have informed the company and plans to discuss his findings at the Black Hat DC Security Research Conference in early February.

Ominously, he says that the microblogging service might have been vulnerable for over a year.

If a computer security analyst in Orlando Florida could find an issue at Twitter, it’s a safe bet that malicious hackers could as well. If they have chances are, you wouldn’t know about it, even if you yourself got hacked.

This type of exploit allows a hacker to access your password. Once the hacker has your password, they have your Twitter history and all the information contained within. If that information includes direct messages containing sensitive information, the hacker might have scored something. With the ability to spider freshly scraped databases of direct messages between users, sensitive information could easily be discovered. Fortunately, most hackers are keyboard warriors, not hardened criminals. They’re not going to use your information against you. Unfortunately, some hackers know hardened criminals well enough to do a lot of business with them.

There’s not a lot of safety for hackers in ripping people off. Hackers compile information which they tend to sell to others or trade within their communities rather than use that information themselves. Hackers might steal the information but it tends to be their commercial accomplices, the criminals who actually go to the bother of using it to rip you off.

In this case, a more likely scenario has the hacker pretending to be you. With your password, the hacker also has access to your account and can start Tweeting as you. By posing as a particular user, the hacker can prompt friends of that person to click on malicious links. Imagine the swiftness with which one posing as a popular person could create a rapidly growing bot-net using Twitter. Hackers might not perceive themselves as criminals but they do seem to enjoy making bot-nets. Bot-nets are also commercially traded between hackers and criminals.

Given the publicity this story has generated in the past twelve hours, it is very likely the folks at Twitter have taken steps to fix the problem. At this time, we have not received replies from tweets to @twitter and to @biz requesting comment.

Twitter Hawking

How often do you notice human sign turners when you’re driving down the street? Anyone living in a larger city has most likely seen them. They are the people standing by the side of the road holding up signs for small businesses. Sometimes they are dressed in costume, sometimes they are dressed in street clothes. To gander extra attention, they twirl and spin the signs to attract the eyes of drivers.

That’s how I feel today. @WebmasterRadio.FM has been using Twitter extensively to promote shows, special ad-offers, and Affiliate Convention. The initiative is pushing hundreds of people per day to our various campaigns. It’s all about driving the most relevant traffic possible and, in that respect, the campaigns are working.

We’ve been using Twitter this heavily for nearly nine months. While there are still a lot of aspects of the medium that need to be thought through, it is obvious the era of subscribed instant message marketing is only beginning. Here are a few of our more serious thoughts beyond feeling like sorta like sign spinners.

With Twitter, attention comes in a matter of seconds and drops off just as quickly. Within 15 seconds of issuing a Tweet, clicks are realized. Within five minutes after that Tweet is posted, the clicks drop off dramatically. There is a very short long-tail as people check their personal Twitter streams throughout the day but the real action takes place in that five minute window. That makes an attention cycle of 300 seconds or less. That one fact alone makes campaign analytics more difficult.

I find myself obsessively watching stats and doing instant analytic math. 8 clicks in the last five minutes from a Tweet issued at 2:10pm. The same Tweet issued at 4:30pm the day before drove 12 clicks in five minutes. Retweets of yesterday’s tweets drove more traffic than the original Tweets did but are only driving half that traffic today. Message A worked better than Message B on Tuesdays between X and Y hours but not as well on Monday between the same hours.

A brain-teasing aspect about Twitter campaigns is the sheer speed of the attention cycle makes effective analysis of each effort maddeningly difficult. That speed makes A/B testing almost useless. A five minute cycle means we’re A/B/C/D/E/F/G… testing. It feels more like tracking a multi-ad display campaign than a traditional PPC campaign both in volume and number of unique ads deployed.

We have slightly more incentive to succeed than the typical sign twirler. Digital marketing is our career. Like sign-spinners, it’s all about driving traffic. Unlike sign-spinners, we are responsible for the message as well as the outcome of that message’s reception. Today, Twitter has driven several hundred clicks. How those clicks breakdown into the cycle defined by twelve segment per hour makes for some extremely interesting research and analysis.

WebmasterRadio-FM 2009 in Review

2009 was arguably the most intense year in WebmasterRadio.FM’s five year history. In the face of the most difficult economic outlook in modern memory, WebmasterRadio.FM expanded on several fronts. Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to in 2009.

Over the course of the past twelve months we:

• introduced eight new shows and redesigned several others,
• juggled our schedule grid to better complement the topic and tone of each show,
• redesigned our website and archives, twice,
• started our own conference series called Affiliate Convention,
• Got all shows listed on iTunes and iTunes Radio,
• covered some of the most interesting and intelligent conferences in the world,
• turned 5,
• collectively spent about eight weeks in transit,
• each fell ill at one point or another (except Brasco),
• produced a number of extraordinary commercials including the XY7 rap,
• located a man on a boat in the middle of the Antarctic Ocean on a whim because Daron and Brandy wanted to interview him,
• threw the third largest SearchBash in our history at SES San Jose (the first and second largest both happened in 2008 at separate conferences in Las Vegas),
• interviewed the fellow who practically invented the home computer,
• introduced WebmasterRadio.FM’s video coverage of conferences and tradeshows at SES Chicago, and,
• we managed to stay mostly sane the entire time.

For WebmasterRadio.FM, 2009 was the Year of Accomplishment.

Some aspects of 2009 were quite challenging. The economy created personal and professional chaos for many of our friends. The Microsoft/Yahoo deal effectively removed a major source of innovation and inspiration in the search community. The media landscape is changing rapidly and though we believe entities like WebmasterRadio.FM are examples of the future of mainstream media, such change is disconcerting. To top it off, WebmasterRadio.FM decided to aim higher than ever before by starting a conference series and committing to make those conferences free for the majority of attendees!

For any business planners, such degrees of uncertainty and risk is downright scary. We, however, are entrepreneurs. For us, risk brings reward and hard work makes all the difference. 2009 was very challenging for the WebmasterRadio.FM crew. By all accounts, we rose to those challenges and, though we always wish we could do more, we exceeded our own expectations.

In the studio, 2009 was filled with uplifting, enlightening and often hilarious “only on radio” moments. We interviewed some of the most amazing characters in the digital marketing industry on our way to creating thousands of unique podcasts across our 40 distinct channels.

2009 was a difficult year and no matter what we accomplished over the past 12 months, we’re as glad to see it gone as everyone else is. Before we throw the old man out with the new baby’s bath water; we should sit back and appreciate those moments and accomplishments. In hindsight, 2009 was a rather good year for WebmasterRadio.FM. Here are a few of the major WebmasterRadio.FM moments and general milestones from the year that was.

January 2009
Buzzwords: Facebook, Social Media, Economy

Jan07 – LifeTips celebrates 100th episode

Jan07 – The Domain Bloggers Roundtable, Domain Masters
Domain Bloggers roundtable discussion between Michael Berkens TheDomains.com, Michael Gilmour, publisher of the WhizzBangsBlog, and Elliot Silver from ElliotsBlog.com.

Jan12 – PPC Predictions for 2009, PPCRockstars
PPC Rockstars host David Szetela and Matt Van Wagner of FindMeFaster give their PPC predictions for the coming year.

Jan13 – Doug Heil discusses how Cloaking is Spamming on SEORockstars!
The infamous Doug Heil of ihelpyou forums gives his take on how Cloaking is Spamming, plus black hat SEO, his altering tradeshow experience, and takes us back to his early days in search including how one of his early sites was banned by AltaVista.

Jan13 – New PBS Reality Show with Hannah Keeley, PurseStrings
Lifestyle expert and TV star Hannah Keeley interviewed on Purse Strings by Maria Reitan

Jan15 – Debut of Office Hours with Vanessa Fox
Vanessa discusses the biggest on site issues that often get overlooked, plus she discusses how people lose sight about who their customers are, plus how theyre more worried about getting links

Jan15 – Linda Woods moderates an Affiliate Marketing roundtable discussion at Affiliate Summit West
Linda moderates part 1 of a roundtable discussion on Affiliate Marketing in 2009 taped at Affiliate Summit West 09. (part 2 here)

Jan18 – Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Society and TV’s Whale Wars appears on Rainmaker, from the middle of the Antarctic Ocean while chasing the Japanese whaling fleet.

Jan20 – Barack Obama sworn in as President of the United States of America

Jan22 – The Shoemoney Show returns to WebmasterRadio.FM
Shoemoney discusses his blog post on his dislike of 95 percent of SEO Experts with Search Engine Land Editor in Chief Danny Sullivan.

Jan20 – Google moves forward with personalization plans by adding “my preferred site” options to SERPs. SEOs consider content more important than ever.

Jan 22 – Brian Caldwell covers the 2008 Crunchie Awards from the red carpet in San Francisco.

Jan 25 – WebmasterRadio.FM visits the iDate / Social Networking Conferences at the Miami Convention Center.

Jan26 – Yelp Complain Lawsuit, Webcology
Attorney Michael Blacksburg, who represented Christopher Nordberg in a Yelp Complaint Lawsuit

Jan29 – Michael Korda on Rainmaker
Publishing legend Michael Korda and his wife, best selling author Margaret Korda take some time to discuss their house guests, Michael entertains us with some impersonations of Truman Capote and Winston Churchill.

Jan30 – Google announces One Domain per Ad Group policy at WebmasterWorld

February 2009
Buzzwords: Economy, SMXWest, User Power, Twitter

Feb02 – Debut of revised SEO 101, Common mistakes SEOs make
Ross Dunn and Jennifer Evans Laycock discuss the common mistakes SEOs make, including Flash pages, targeting, link building, branding, and unrealistic client expectations.

Feb04 – Google’s use of Ajax scrubs analytics APIs.
Google quickly corrects its mistake.

Feb05 – Rainmaker’s 100th episode is marked with a call from the infamous Dick Masterson along with a few dozen of Daron and Brandy’s friends.

Feb05 – Google Forces Time Warners Hand, Webcology
Google forces TimeWarner to offload AOL, Bill Gates lets loose mosquitoes on tech conference bloodsuckers and Landing Page Optimization expert Tim Ash drops by to talk about his new show, LPO on WebmasterRadio.FM

Feb10, 11, 12 – SMX West, Santa Clara CA (More from SMX West)

Feb11 – Google penalizes Google.co.jp for buying blog reviews.

Feb11 – PPC Drunken Roundtable SMX West
In this special edition of PPC Rockstars, David Szetela takes the lead in a discussion about the state of PPC with a panel of PPC experts.

Feb13 – Google discontinues Audio/Radio Ads

Feb16 – Canonical Link Tags, SMX West, SEO 101
Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft introduced Canonical Link Tags as a joint effort to help reduce duplicate content at SMX West.

Feb16 – Affiliate Convention Denver organization begins in earnest

Feb18 – Debut of Mobile Presence WebmasterRadio.FM’s show on the emerging mobile Internet featuring Cindy Krum.

Feb19 – Facebook Users Force ToC Update, Webcology
Facebook Terms and Conditions Protest with Julius Harper, founder of the protest group Facebook Owns You

Feb20 – Canonical Link Tags Discussion, WMR Rewind spreads across Office Hours and SEO 101

Feb26 – ABCs of PPC Click Fraud, PPC Rockstars
ABCs of PPC Click Fraud and what you can do to protect yourself from a practice that may be eating 17% of your ad spend with Tom Cuthbert, founder and president of ClickForensics.

Feb26 – WebmasterRadio.FM Introduces New Website, Webcology
The first of two website rebuilds in the first quarter of the year.

March 2009
Buzzwords: Content, Canonical, Landing Page, SES NY, OMG (did Kawasaki just say that?)

Mar01 – WebmasterRadio.FM builds a second new website.
(this one better than the first)

Mar04 – Cold Fusion to WordPress, SEORockstars
Cold Fusion to Wordpress as New Site Platform Changes come to the WebmasterRadio.FM website

Mar05 – Debut of Penelope Trunk’s Career Considerations, a short-lived but much enjoyed show on the life and views of the one and only Penelope Trunk.

Mar06 – Canonical Tag Adoption, Office Hours Vanessa Fox talks about canonical tag adoption by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft on Office Hours

Mar09 – Debut of Landing Page Optimization hosted by Tim Ash. Tim talks about the importance of Landing Page Optimization as more webmasters look to improve the profitability of their online marketing programs.

Mar16 – Debut of Fired Up with Gordon Rudow – Organizational Communication and Motivation
Organizational Communication and Motivation with guest Dr.Beverly Kaye.

Mar16 – PPC Twitter Forum, PPC Rockstars
David offers a Live PPC Twitter forum for listeners to ask questions

Mar18 – Swine flu outbreak detected in Mexico City
Initial efforts to contain H1N1 virus fails. H1N1 cases begin to clog clinics as the virus spread around the world.

Mar19, Mar26 – Linda Woods does a 2-part special on
The Women of Affiliate Marketing (part 1)
The Women of Affiliate Marketing, (part 2)

Mar24-27 – SES NY 09 WebmasterRadio.FM headed to New York City for Search Engine Strategies NY 2009. During and in the week before SESNY, we gathered two dozen audio files covering the scope of the conference. We also broadcast and podcast the three keynote speeches. Full coverage spans archive pages 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Mar24 – Guy Kawasaki’s Controversial Keynote at SES NY09 Web marketing guru and serial entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki makes highly controversial comments during his keynote speech at SES New York 2009. The comments prompt a wide ranging reaction within the search and social marketing communities.

Mar25 – Drunken PPC Roundtable from SES New York 2009
The second Drunken PPC Roundtable aired live at SES New York 2009.

Mar28 – 3rd Earth Hour Experiment
Between the hours of 8:30pm and 9:30pm (local time), a wave of darkness rolled around the world as residents and businesses in over 100 cities and thousands of smaller communities turned off non-essential electric or electronic items. City of Toronto records a 15.1% decrease in electrical consumption, up from 8.7% in 2008.

April 2009
Buzzwords: Affiliate Taxation, Twitter Spam, Cyber Security

Apr02 – Vanessa Fox @ Web 2.0 Expo 2009
Social Media and Unlimited Bandwidth for Spidering are among the topics Vanessa discusses on location from Web 2.0 Expo 2009

Apr02 – A Surprise call to IM Spring Break, Webcology
Jim and Dave speak to Steve Plunkett and Chris Winfield, who give us an inside look at IM Spring Break.

Apr02 – Speaker and Author Seth Godin, Shoemoney Show
Speaker and Author Seth Godin joins Shoemoney for an exclusive interview.

Apr03 – The rise of The Bacon Explosion
Your regularly scheduled Rewind will not be played this week. Instead, we wanted to bring you a bit of the Miami Blues from The Bacon Explosion @imspringbreak.

Apr06 – AP Declares War on Bloggers, moves to limit use of AP content by bloggers, including cited quotes.

Apr08 – Facebook population reaches 200million

Apr09 – MadMen TV Show on Twitter, Webcology
The Twitter MadMen supporting characters cast on their work on Twitter, the metaverse and everything.

Apr09 – Affiliate Taxation Legislation in California, AMI
Discussion of California’s efforts to enact affiliate taxation legislation as Linda Woods discusses the affiliate tax issue with industry leaders David Lewis, Beth Kirsch and Peter Bordes.

Apr17 – @Oprah join Twitter

Apr17 – In unrelated news, Anton Kutcher becomes first Twitter user with more than 1 million followers.

Apr20 – Guy Kawasaki interviewed by David Szetela on PPC Rockstars
Social media guru Guy Kawasaki to explain controversial comments he made at SES NY09.

Apr20 – Guy Kawasaki Twitter Tactics Discussion, SEO 101
Twitter Tactics Discussion following a PPC Rockstars interview featuring David Szetela’s interview of Guy Kawasaki.

April 21 – 23 – ad|Tech San Francisco 2009
WebmasterRadio.FM provides coverage of the ad|Tech San Francisco 2009 Conference. (more ad|Tech SF09 coverage)

Apr28 – Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, SEORockstars
Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza give us some insight into the new book “Search Engine Optimization for Dummies”.

Apr30 – CyberSecurity and Conflickr, Webcology
Cyber Security in a Time of Conflict and Conflickr with Sean Paul Correll of Panda Security.

Apr 30 – Membership Site Mastermind, Yaro Starak on Shoemoney Show
Austrailian Entrepreneur and professional blogger Yaro Starak tells us about his new training program called Membership Site Mastermind.

May 2009
Buzzwords: Google, localization, Affiliate Convention

May04 – Wolfram Alpha launches

May06 – Duke Nukem Forever finally killed by 3D Realms
Infamous for taking longer to develop than any other piece of software in computer history, this highly anticipated game served to define the term vaporware.

May06 – Localization Appearing in Google, SEM Synergy
Localization Appearing in Google, including the local results and non-local queries.

May14 – CEO Jim Safka leaves Ask.com, replaced by Scott Garell.

May14 – Google outage on East Coast of US, Webcology
Jim and Dave discuss the recent Google Service Outage in Washington DC where Google services like Google News and Gmail were reported to have completely stopped working.

May21 – Affiliate Convention Denver 2009 Goals, AMI
WebmasterRadio.FM CEO Daron Babin discusses the goal he hopes to achieve with Affiliate Convention 2009 in Denver.

May27 – Google Wave introduced at Google I/O conference
Google’s collaborative sharing/productivity environment opened to approximately 100,000 users in September and all users in November.

May28 – Search Taxonomy and ProBlogger Kudos, Shoemoney
Aaron Wall of SEOBook joins Shoemoney to talk about The Search Taxonomy, and ProBlogger gets some kudos.

June 2009
Buzzwords: Wave, Bing, nofollow, Affiliate Convention, Denver, Iran, Twitter, Michael Jackson

June01 – Google Wave Review, StrikePoint
Dave and Mikkel review the new online communication and collaboration tool Google Wave.

June04 – Microsoft’s Bing Search Summit, Office Hours
SEO Rockstars Todd “Oilman” Friesen and Greg Webguerilla” Boser join Vanessa Fox on location from Microsoft’s Bing Search Summit.

June08, 9 – SMX Advanced Coverage
Dave Davies acted as a rover reporter at SMX Advanced 09 in Seattle.

June14 – Greenwave Revolution Begins
Twitter users in Iran get news out of country during Iran election protests amidst severe government repression. #iranelection becomes top news event discussed on Twitter in 2009.

June17 – Microsoft Search Engine Bing Reviewed, SEM Synergy
The crew of SEM Synergy review Bing based on early traffic numbers.

June18, 19 – Inaugural Affiliate Convention opens in Denver Colorado
WebmasterRadio.FM’s first convention exceeds our own expectation. It is now solidly established as a long-term conference and tradeshow series for affiliates.

June18 – Kris Jones Keynote-The Future Of Affiliate Marketing
In this keynote presentation, Kristopher Jones, President and CEO of Pepperjam, outlines his view of the Affiliate Marketing industry to open Affiliate Convention Denver 2009.

June19 – Conversations on Affiliate Performance Marketing
Conversation Keynote on Affiliate Performance Marketing at Affiliate Convention Denver 2009. Peter Bordes, CEO of MediaTrust , Steve Hartman, Sr. Director, Publisher Development, eBay and Steve Schaffer, Founder and CEO of Vertive examine the current state of the affiliate performance marketing industry.

June19 – Black Hat versus White Hat SEO: Protecting Affiliates panel session
Black Hat versus White Hat SEO : Protecting Affiliates, discussed at Affiliate Convention 2009 in Denver.

June19 – Final Debate Panel at Affiliate Convention Denver 2009
The Final Panel Discussion where attendees engage with the panelists in a free forum discussion on various topics. Marc Lesnick’s end-of-conference tradition of serving copious amounts of beer to the audience and panel becomes a new tradition at Affiliate Convention.

June23 – Black Hat versus White Hat SEO at Affiliate Convention, SEORockstars
Black Hat versus White Hat SEO : Protecting Affiliates, discussed by Scott Polk,SEO Specialist for Bruce Clay Inc., Frank Watson, co-Founder, Director of SEM for Kangamurra Media and Daron Babin aka SEGuru of WebmasterRadio.FM.

June24, 25 – BlogHer 2009 coverage on WebmasterRadio.FM
Debbie Bookstaber acted as a roving reporter at the BlogHer 2009 conference in Chicago.

June24 – New NoFollow Behavior for SEO
Bruce Clay sits down with Susan and Virginia for the whole SEM Synergy show to give his input on what the new nofollow behavior means for SEO, siloing and search optimization practitioners.

June25 – Death of the King of Pop
One of the greatest popular music composers in history, Michael Jackson, dies at age 50.

June26 – Reaction to Michael Jackson Death
Reaction to the celebrity death of Michael Jackson as we reflect on his humanitarian efforts, his legendary music career, and all of his triumphs and tragedies.

June27 – Death of a Pitchman
Legendary TV pitchman Billy Mays dies at age 50.

June30 – Looking Back at Affiliate Convention 2009 Denver, SEO-Rockstars
Frank Watson, co-Founder, Director of SEM for Kangamurra Media joins SEGuru to recap Affiliate Convention 2009 in Denver, and they look ahead to Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009.

July 2009
Buzzwords: Affiliates, Microwho?, Iran, Twitter, Michael Jackson

July01 – ICANN Australia 2009 Recap. Domain Masters
A Recap from the ICANN Australia 2009 meeting with 463 Communications Vice President David McGuire including the debates and discussions that came of it like registry and registrar vertical integration.

July07 – BlogHer ‘09 Conference Review, Purse Strings
BlogHer Conference COO and Co-Founder Elisa Camahort Page discusses the growth and success of the BlogHer Conference Series, which is now in its 5th year, how the event sold out and how LobbyCon was created to give additional networking access and the ability to attend the official cocktail parties.

July07 – Memorial Tribute to Michael Jackson: A WebmasterRadio.FM Special
In this Memorial Tribute to Michael Jackson: A WebmasterRadio.FM Special, Daron Babin aka SEGuru, and Jim Hedger commetns on the event that made up the memorial service held in Los Angeles to pay tribute to the King of Pop.

July08 – Debut episode of Inboxed – Anti-Spam Litigation
The Debut episode of Inboxed, broadcast on location from Affiliate Convention 2009 in Denver, Colorado, offers a discussion on a recent court case between XY7 and anti-spam attorney Dan Balsam (Case Number CSM-09-829275 Balsam vs. Rapid Resource Marketing). Bennett Kelley of the Internet Law Center fills us in on the verdict of that case.

July16 – Facebook population reaches 250 million.

July16 – Preparing for the Future of Search, Webcology
Jim interviews Charlene Li, Co-Author, Groundswell, Founder, Altimeter Group, and she previews her upcoming SES San Jose 2009 Keynote presentation entitled How to Prepare for the Future of Search.

July16 – Amazon Refuses to Pay Affiliates for Twitter Links
Joshua Odmark and Gideon Rubin discuss Amazon.com’s recent decision NOT to pay commissions on sales that result from affiliate links on Twitter.

July20 – Canonical Tags and Affiliate Links Testing, Strike Point
Dave discusses some testing he did with canonical tags and Affiliate links, plus they give their take on the announcement of the new Google Chrome Operating System.

July28 – Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal Imminent
With news of the Microsoft Yahoo Ad deal being finalized, WebmasterRadio.FM brings you a round table discussion on the deal and its implications. Jim Hedger and Daron Babin are joined by Techcrunch Editor At Large and BusinessWeek columnist Sarah Lacy, and SearchReturn CEO Disa Johnson.

July30 – Yahoo Microsoft Deal Effect on Owners, Developers and SEOs
Vanessa Fox discusses What Site Owners, Web Developers & SEOs Should Know About The Yahoo Microsoft Deal, plus she answers questions like how much filtering or modification to the Bing feed do you think Yahoo will do for organic results.

July30 – The Benefits of BingYa!-The Microsoft Yahoo Search Deal, Webcology
Jim and Dave take a look at the various sectors immediately (or very soon to be) affected by the new-born beast known as BingYa!

August 2009
Buzzwords: Bing, Caffeine, SES San Jose, SearchBash, ICANN

Aug03 – Microsoft Yahoo Search Deal Reaction, StrikePoint
Mikkel and Dave give their reaction to the Microsoft Yahoo Search Deal, that Pending regulatory approval, the number two and three search engines will combine their forces for an alliance that will tackle Google on its home turf of web search.

Aug04 – Debut episode of Press This with Joost DeValk – WordPress Plugins in Development
Joost welcomes one of the newest member to Automattics Wordpress team. John Gridley tells us about his new role with Automattic, and plugins that are in development. Plus Joost answers chatroom questions on optimizing Wordpress for Search.

Aug04 – Microsoft Bing In Depth, SEO Rockstars
Nathan Buggia, Lead Program Manager of Bing takes us in depth in side the new Microsoft Bing Search Engine, showcases the new features and takes us through the change to Bing from Microsoft Live.

Aug10 – Landing Page Testing and Design, PPC Rockstars
Landing Page Testing and Design with Site Tuners CEO Tim Ash. Tim introduces us to the private beta rollout of Attention Wizard, which is designed to predict where people are looking on your landing page.

Aug10, 11, 12, 13 – WebmasterRadio.FM provides full coverage of Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009
The last great SES show in San Jose (next year SES moves to San Francisco) and WebmasterRadio.FM played a fuller role than ever before. Along with full scale coverage of the conference, WebmasterRadio.FM threw the premier party of the week with an Alice in Wonderland Themed SearchBash.

Aug11 – Clay Shirky Keynote at SES San Jose 09
Clay Shirky, the author of Here Comes Eveybody delivers his keynote presentation to the attendees of Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009.

Aug12 – SES San Jose 2009-Nicholas Fox Keynote
Nicholas Fox, Business Product Management Director, AdWords for Google, in his SES San Jose 2009 Keynote address, discusses the future of the search engine marketing industry and his vision of where the industry is going.

Aug13 – Charlene Li-SES San Jose 2009 Keynote
Charlene Li is an influential thought leader and guide on emerging technologies. She is the co-author of the business best-seller, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Her presentation focuses on How to Prepare for the Future of Search.

Aug11 – Roundtable on Bing-Yahoo and Google Caffeine
From SES San Jose 2009, a panel of Search marketing experts; BestOfTheWeb President Greg Hartnett , SiteLogic Director of Marketing Jennifer Laycock, Pole Position Marketing President Stoney deGeyter and Enquisite CEO Richard Zwicky, discuss hot topics including the Bing Yahoo deal, and Google Caffeine.

Aug13 – Debut of The Search Cowboys with Bas Van Den Beld and Roy Huiskes, Real Time Search Debate
The Search Cowboys bring you a sneak preview of their radio show on WebmasterRadio.FM, plus they get into a debate of real time search, and which products are offering serious real time search.

Aug18 – WordPress Usability, Press This
WordPress Usability with the CTO of Mashable, Frederick Townes. He and Joost discuss RSS, plugins, and answer a number of chatroom questions. Questions include scrapers, blocking bots, vBulletins, security and more.

Aug20 – Greenwave (Iran) Revolution on Twitter, Webcology
#iranelection and #gr88 US Twitter organizer Kristine Schachinger discusses how the social networking tool Twitter allowed people to report on events in Iran during the election protests and media blackout earlier this summer.

Under the user name @schachin, Kristine has acted as an organizer, promoter, programmer and catalyst for the Greenwave Revolution on Twitter. She and her team worked 20-hour days keeping information flowing from the streets of Iran.

Our interview covers the technical and emotional challenges of supporting the incredible peoples’ democratic uprising on the streets of Iran.

Aug24 – The Death of Keywords? PPC Rockstars
Andrew Goodman discuss the possible changes of keywords in PPC Campaigns, based on comments made during the keynote of Nicholas Fox at SES San Jose 2009, plus some blog posts written by Goodman stating The keyword long tail is dead.

Aug26 – 2009 ICANN Seoul Preview, Domain Masters
David McGuire,Vice President of 463 Communications, previews the October ICANN meeting in Seoul Korea and some of the current issues that may impact the status quo in the domain world.

Aug28 – Full release of Snow Leopard, version 10.6 of Apple’s OS X operating system.
Snow Leopard replaces the previous OS nicknamed Tiger. Perhaps Steve Jobs really can see the future.

September 2009
Buzzwords: Realtime Search, Net Neutrality, Analytics

Sept 1, 2 – ad|Tech Chicago Coverage
Shawna Fennell (eCom Experts) provides roving reporter coverage of ad|Tech Chicago 2009. (More ad|Tech Chicago 09 coverage)

Sept01 – Future of Wordpress, Press This
Wordpress Lead Developer Mark Jaquith discusses some of the plans for future development in WordPress including the 2.9 and version 3, plus listener questions on CMS integration, total cache and other plugins.

Sept02 – Analytics Importance, SEM Synergy
Bruce presents a special episode of SEM Synergy dedicated to analytics with some of the experts. In interviews with Avinash Kaushik, Jim Sterne and Daniel Waisberg, Virginia and the guests take an in-depth look at forward thinking in the Web analytics field. (This was one of the most downloaded podcasts of 2009!)

Sept08 – Behind the PR Blackout, Purse Strings
Trisha Haas is blogger and founder of MomDot.com, a community for moms who blog. Trisha is the blogger who first suggested the PR Blackout, which became quite a controversial topic of discussion last month. She tells us about her original intent and how the blackout turned out.

Sept15 – President Barack Obama calls Kanye West “a jackass”
What do you get when you mix the President of the United States, Twitter, a younger CNBC staffer with particularly acute hearing, and a jackass together? An embarrassing incident, that’s what. Barack of the Blackberry, you should have known better dude!

Sept16 – Facebook population surpasses 300 million

Sept16 – SEO Hierarchy of Needs, SEM Synergy
Bruce Clay, Susan Esparza and Virginia Nussey discuss other applications for the SEO Hierarchy of Needs on SEM Synergy, including how it can be adapted to individual tactics as well as other Internet marketing disciplines.

Sept24 – Performance Marketing Association Fights Affiliate Tax, AMI
Rebecca Madigan, founder and executive director of the Performance Marketing Alliance discusses how the Performance Marketing Association is fighting Affiliate Tax.

Sept24 – FCC Backs Net Neutrality, Webcology
Jim and Dave discusses FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announcing his full support behind the principles of Net Neutrality, plus Jim tells us about how he got Twitter hacked.

Sept29 – Barry Lloyd of MakeMeTop on PPC, Analytics and Marketing, SEO Rockstars
Barry Lloyd, CEO of MakeMeTop, providers of PPC Bid Management, Internet Marketing and Web Analytics Tools. Barry gives his backstory of how he made his first million, plus he fills us in on his new toolset that Daron fully endorses.

October 2009
Buzzwords: SEO, PageRank, SMX East

Oct06 – PRSA 2009 Conference – Bob Garfield Keynote Preview, Cover Story
Bob Garfield previews his PRSA 2009 International Conference Keynote, which ask the question: Is traditional media falling apart before our eyes, and more importantly, are we prepared to pick up the pieces? He explores this topic in his latest book, The Chaos Scenario.

Oct04, 5, 6 – SMX East 2009 Coverage
WebmasterRadio.FM had three roving reporters covering SMX East 09 in New York this year. SMX East 09 Coverage 1, SMX East 09 Coverage 2, SMX East 09 Coverage 3

Oct07 – SMX East 2009 Recap, SEM Synergy
SEMSynergy’s Virginia Nussey gives a recap of SMX East 2009 featuring interviews with Craig Danuloff and Mike McDonald.

Oct13 – SEO for Bloggers, part1, Press This
SEOmoz CEO and Co-Founder Rand Fishkin gives some SEO Advice for bloggers. Rand reflects the SEO collaboration done to Yoasts website, plus we learn about various SEO tools SEOMoz offers including Linkscape and YOUMoz.

Oct15 – Google Removes PageRank From Webmaster Tools, Search Cowboys
Bas and Roy discuss the headlines including: Google Removes PageRank Data From Webmaster Tools, Facebook is conquering Europe, plus they recap A4u Expo London 2009.

Oct15 – Baloon Boy hoax takes over news cycle
Richard and Mayumi Heene receive another utterly fascinating and pathetically banal 15-minutes of fame resulting in a 90-day jail sentence for the father, a 20-day sentence for the mother and increased advertising revenues for everyone else concerned.

Oct19 – Google Removes PageRank Metric. Linkbuilding Effect of PageRank Removal, SEO 101
Ross Dunn and John Carcutt discuss a listener email on the Linkbuilding and SEO Effect of PageRank Removal, plus a listener on query freshness when it comes to ranking on Google.

Oct20 – SEO for Bloggers, part2, Press This
More SEO for Bloggers talk with Aaron Wall of SEO Book. Joost and Aaron also answer questions that include recommended tools and sites, and even the best way to create a mobile-friendly and still SEO friendly site?

Oct20 – Reviewing the PartyAnimal.Org, SEO Rockstars
A simple site review turns into a massive favor as SEGuru (Daron Babin) and Jim Hedger review a website that really needed their help. The site owner later wrote Daron to thank him for turning her business around.

Oct27 – Windows 7 released to public
Windows 7 replaces the ill fated OS Vista. Microsoft engineers breathe as Windows 7 receives strong reviews from users, most of whom simply appear happy it actually works and is superior to XP.

Oct26 – Debut of eCom Experts with Shawna Fennell, SEO for eCommerce
Rob Snell, author of Starting a Yahoo Business For Dummies, joins Shawna Fennell for the premiere episode of eCom Experts. They discuss how to apply SEO into your e-commerce ventures and offers tips on transcriptions, sidebar navigation, CSS and RTML.

November 2009
Buzzwords: ad:Tech NY, Affiliate Convention, Caffeine, Google, Twitter, Real time search, Tiger

Nov 3, 4, 5, 6 – WebmasterRadio.FM provides full coverage of ad|Tech New York 2009
WebmasterRadio.FM gathered dozens of interviews in the press room and with roving reporters for our coverage of an ad|Tech Conference. Interviews: ad|Tech New York 2009 interviews 1, ad|Tech New York 2009 interviews 2, ad|Tech New York 2009 interviews 3

Nov03 – XY7 and Friends No Bull Party 3
On location from Johnny Utahs in Midtown Manhattan New York City, XY7.com and Friends presents the Adtech New York 2009 Pre Show Party, No Bull Party 3.

Nov4 – CNN Redesign and SEO, SEM Synergy
Virginia Nussey speaks with CNN SEO Coordinator Topher Kohan about the news organization’s newly redesigned website.

Nov07, 08, 09, 10 – WebmasterRadio.FM goes to the PRSA Int. Conference 2009
Brandy Shapiro Babin, Maria Reitan and Dana Todd cover the Public Relations Society of American International Conference held in San Diego CA.

Nov07 – Bob Garfield on Positioning of Public Relations

Bob Garfield shares some afterthoughts following his PRSA 2009 International Conference presentation on how the mass media–mass marketing symbiosis is dead and how public relations as an industry is better positioned than most.

Nov08 – Arianna Huffington and Wendell Potter PRSA 2009 Keynote
Huffington Post Editor in Chief Arianna Huffington and Center for Media and Democracy Fellow Wendell Potter deliver their PRSA 2009 International Conference keynote.

Nov08 – Haagen Dazs Ice Cream Correlation with Honey Bees
Dave Chapman and Diane McIntyre give an overview on how they solved the Haagen-Dazs revenue slump with the campaign: Haagen-Dazs loves Honey Bees, plus they discusses how Honey bees products contribute to the ingredient to half of the flavors from Haagen-Dazs.

Nov12 – Steve Wozniak Appears on Rainmaker
Steve Wozniak will discusses his history in IT going back to his time with Hewlett Packard, his recent stint on the hit reality TV show Dancing with the Stars. Finally, Steve discusses his latest interest, Fusion-IO, a company specializing in the design of data storage and FLASH drive devices.

Nov18 – Advanced Strategies in Affiliate Marketing, Domain Masters
Advanced Strategies in Affiliate Marketing – how do domains fit in? Victor interviews Jay Berkowitz of Ten Golden Rules, winner of the 2009 SoFIE Award in the Most Effective Use of Emerging or Innovative Media, category.

Nov19 – Affiliate Fraud Roundtable Discussion
This edition of the Affiliate Marketing Insider podcast tackles one of the biggest challenges the affiliate marketing industry faces, affiliate fraud.

Nov23 – Distinguishing Real Time Search, SEO 101
Ross Dunn and John Carcutt discuss real time search and distinguishing it from time sensitive search based on when something happened, fresh content sensitive search meaning different search results based on the most recent data content and geo-spatial sensitive search based on the location of the user search for that content.

Nov27 – Tiger Woods Shanks his Drive and Hits a Hydrant
The greatest golfer of his generation worms his way into the old, “Ball in the Wrong Hole” routine. Comedians, tabloids and television producers around the world rejoice as Christmas comes early and apparently, often.

December 2009
Buzzwords: Affiliate Convention LA, SES Chicago, Video, Family, Holidays, Special

Dec1 – WordPress Podcast Merges with Press This
Joost is joined by WordPress Podcast host Charles Stricklin, as they announce that Joost is continuing the WordPress Podcast, merging it with Press This. Also, the introduction of a weekly a news segment on all things WordPress with Frederick Townes.

Dec03, 04 – Affiliate Convention LA 2009
The second conference and tradeshow in the Affiliate Convention series is held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.

Dec03 – Danny Sullivan Affiliate Convention LA 2009 Keynote Interview
Daron Babin interviews Danny Sullivan about The State of Search and Affiliate Marketing in this keynote conversation from Affiliate Convention Los Angeles 2009.

Dec03 – Net Guides Publishing President James Martell
Net Guides Publishing President James Martell who offers educational products to those wanting to start their own home based publishing businesses, is profiled on his works including the Affiliate Marketers Handbook, Affiliate Marketing Boot Camp and more.

Dec03 – Ashley Madison Features Tiger Woods in Ad Campaign
Evan Back, Vice President of Sales of Ashley Madison Agency, speaks about his Affiliate Convention LA 2009 panel on Affiliate Marketing in the Dating Space, including how they have incorporated the Tiger Woods scandal into a new ad campaign.

Dec04 – Tim Ash Affiliate Convention LA 2009 Keynote Presentation
Site Tuners CEO Tim Ash delivers his Affiliate Convention 2009 Los Angeles Keynote to discuss How To Repel Super Affiliates With Crappy Landing Pages.

Dec04 – Affiliate Tax Issues in 2010
Brook Schaaf, Founder of Schaaf Consulting discusses his Affiliate Convention Los Angeles 2009 presentation on the Affiliate Tax situation, Looking Forward through 2010

Dec04 – Marketing to Mobile Devices
Cindy talks with her co-panelists from the Marketing to Mobile Devices at Affiliate Convention LA 2009 about what they discussed at a the conference plus extra content not mentioned on the floor.

Dec04 – Black Hat versus White Hat: Shades of Gray?
Affiliate Convention panel discussion between Greg Boser, Founder of 3 Dog Media; Patrick Sexton, Founder of GetListed; Pierre Zarokian of Submit Express and Scott Polk of Scott Polk Consulting.

Dec07, 08, 09 – SES Chicago

Dec07 – PPC Secrets Revealed, the Third Drunken PPC Roundtable in 2009
Listen as loose lips reveal deepest darkest PPC secrets. Wouldn’t you love to get even just some of these confirmed PPC experts alone in a bar?

Dec09 – SEO Old Timers Roundtable
Spamming, Links, Black Hat, White Hat, ranking is all game in this SEO Old Timers Roundtable following the final day of sessions at SES Chicago 2009, broadcast on location from Kitty O Sheas inside the Hilton Chicago.

Dec14 – PPC Strategies and Search, PPC Rockstars
Discussing PPC Strategies and Search and How Super Affiliates Make the Most, as David follows up a Affiliate Convention 2009 Los Angeles panel presentation with Atrinsic Interactive CEO Aaron Baker.

Dec15 – Google Real Time Search Talk Continues, Search Cowboys
Bas and Roy are joined by special guest, Orange Valley SEO Consultant Eduard Blacquiere, and they discusses the latest with Google Real Time Search, and express their fondness for Google Vice President, Search Products & User Experience Marissa Mayer.

Dec21 – SEO Topics to Watch in 2010, SEO 101
Ross and John ask What are the big SEO topics to watch in 2010. THey go through the various search related events What are the ToDos on your 2010 SEO list?

Twitter Signs Deal with Google

Real time search results are soon to be a reality for Google as the largest search engine signed a deal with Twitter earlier today.

In an update to the Google Blog, Google VP of Search Products and User Experience Marissa Mayer confirmed a deal has been struck between the search engine and Twitter.

Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.
from: RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my!

While no dollar figure was announced, a search deal with Google propels Twitter far further than a similar deal with Bing that was struck last month.

For Google, the inclusion of real time search results in their stream removes a minor but still significant threat from Microsoft by eliminating one of the few obvious differentiators between the two search engines.

Last month, Twitter announced it had closed a deal for $100million in venture capital funds, pushing its valuation over the $1billion mark. With the completion of the Google search deal, Twitter has fully established its grip as the most immediate and powerful social media tool. Expect Twitter results to show up in SERPs within days.

RIP MJ – Twitter as a Newswire

News of Michael Jackson’s death spread around the world in seconds starting with a short and cryptic Tweet reading, “RIP MJ”. Though the burst was 134 characters short of the limit, virtually everyone who saw the post immediately understood its meaning. The enigmatic King of Pop had passed prematurely and technologically tuned in members of Generation X fell into a tremendous emotional funk. The post-boomer version of Elvis was dead.

The outpouring of posts was too much for Twitters servers which gave in several times throughout the afternoon. The first message popped up around 4:50PM eastern, just after the celebrity gossip site TMZ published a report stating Jackson had been transported to the UCLA hospital after suffering a heart attack. While TMZ was the first media outlet to report Jackson’s death, it took over an hour for other mainstream news organizations to verify and report the story.

In that lost hour, confusion and chaos reigned on Twitter, a messaging application that has come to serve as the newswire of the technorati. Conflicting reports suggested Jackson was still alive. Since mainstream news organizations such as CNN or the BBC had not updated their websites, Jackson’s fans held out hope the singer would be saved and reports proved wrong. When, around 5:30PM eastern, a Twitter report stating Jackson’s sister Latoya had been seen running through the hospital crying, the Twitterverse appeared to accept his death and moved into a mode of mourning.

According to another report on TMZ, Jackson’s former agent, Michael Levine released a statement saying Jackson’s death was a decade in the making.

“As someone who served as Michael Jackson’s publicist during the 1st child molestation incident, I must confess I am not surprised by today’s tragic news. Michael has been on an impossibly difficult and often self-destructive journey for years. His talent was unquestionable but so too was his discomfort with the norms of the world. A human simply can not withstand this level of prolonged stress.”

For the past fifteen years, Jackson had lived under a cloud of accusation, financial pressure and what appeared to be severe mental health issues. Twice accused of child molestation, Jackson was acquitted of all charges by a jury. He settled a previous civil suit brought by the parents of another child out of court. The singer spent the last few years traveling around the world, living off the kindness of world leaders, middle eastern princes and the remnants of what was once an incredible fortune.

Arguably the most brilliant song-writer of his generation, Jackson’s talent was immeasurable. His life touched billions, as demonstrated by the impassioned defense his fans gave during his legal troubles a decade ago.

The news of Michael Jackson’s death again demonstrated the power of the Twitter application. A full hour before mainstream news organizations confirmed and reported his passing, his fans were already deep in mourning. As CNN was updating its website with news of Jackson’s death, WebmasterRadio.FM was already into an improvised Michael Jackson memorial special.

Winner of 13 Grammy Awards, writer of 13 #1 hit singles and the artist behind Thriller, the top selling album of all time, Michael Jackson was a conflicted genius whose influence on American pop culture and world music will take decades to decode.

Google Game Changers Come in Waves

Google Wave looks amazing but before diving into this post, I want to make a short confession. I deeply admire Google but the depth and scope of Google’s influence on society leaves me profoundly frightened. Google’s achievements are astounding but those achievements truly threaten the free flow of information even as Google tries to free up the world’s information. It’s a strange but very real paradox, one the super-geniuses working at Google surely understand.

Google is about to unleash a Wave which appears as if it will (again) change the way we communicate and collaborate. If I am interpreting the video demonstration and blog post at the Google Operating System Blog correctly, Google is about to grab the attention of a lot more online eyeballs. Wave could out-do Twitter’s efficiency, threaten Microsoft Office products, and put any other email/IM product to shame. It should also freak out Facebook and put the fear into Flickr.

As an added bonus, Google’s timing in announcing Wave totally stole the thunder from Microsoft’s announcement of its improved and newly minted search engine Bing. Read “What Just Happened? Thursday Was Supposed To Be Bing Day” at TechCrunch for a good overview of how Google kneecaps its rivals when it comes to PR.

I’m old enough to recall working on the web before Google existed and I’ve had the historic pleasure of watching Google evolve from a small start-up to become the most powerful information distribution machine in human history. Google’s path to success involves idealism, artistry, intellect, blatant idea theft, strong-arm business tactics, obsession, brilliance, simplicity and elegance. Google is not acting evil, they’re being super-human. (ed note: a nosh of Nietzsche is well recommended with this whine…)

Since founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided to trust the wisdom of the coders and base their index on the value of links, Google has consistently taken the soundest ideas of the web and created better mousetraps by combining those ideas into a set of indispensable information products. They then give those products to consumers for free by using targeted advertising to pay for the service. For example, GMail mashes an easily used web-based email system with a super-fast search engine while raising revenues by inserting well targeted Ad-Words advertising. Similarly, Google Maps merges quite efficiently with Google Local search which is a natural platform for Google Ad-Words.

When a product or service comes along that might threaten Google one of two things happen. Google gobbles them up through acquisition or Google finds a way to copy the ideas behind that product. Either way, Google merge the idea with other services to create a stronger or better monetized hybrid. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t.

When Google products find favor with Internet users, they become amazing revenue generators for Google and subsidize one of the most proliferate corporate R&D efforts in modern history. That R&D effort allows for the creation of products that flop or are of use only to very small numbers of Internet users. It allows Google’s engineers and developers the right to learn by failure and the latitude to work on crazy ideas that might or might not prove profitable. That’s what gives them a tremendous advantage over virtually every other application provider in the world.

Now, Google has unleashed Wave, using the same modus operandi they’ve used so successfully over the past decade. Wave looks like it will be a game changer.

In an IM I wrote an hour ago to WebmasterRadio.FM head, SE Guru, I suggested if Wave existed when we started organizing the upcoming Affiliate Convention we would have saved a lot of work and communication headaches with other organizers. If it is anything close to what is shown in its video demonstration, I will be using it to do virtually every collaborative task-set, which pretty much covers virtually everything I do as a SEO, blogger, webmaster, and whatever the hell else I do for an online living.

Blending the best of Twitter with document, image, video and object storage, and mashing those with search and social applications, Google Wave is an awesome set of innovations to consider. Google again extends its reach and that extension is so damn useful, there’s not a damn thing I would want to do about it… damn.

Tweet No Tears for Old Media Biases

Maureen Dowd landed an interview many tech writers would give their eye teeth for. Yesterday, Ms. Dowd, a regularly featured opinion columnist for the New York Times, published the results of an interview with Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone. Unfortunately she flubbed it, or perhaps more appropriately, her clearly biased approach to the medium produced a whale of a fail.

During the interview, Ms. Dowd seemed at times frustrated by the terse and sometimes smart-assed answers given by Williams and Stone. In other places, she seemed to miss their points on purpose. What was clear reading the interview was her fear of the future of her profession, a fear she misdirected towards the two Twitter founders. That fear was apparent from the first lines of her column which invoked the legendary British horror director Alfred Hitchcock,

“Alfred Hitchcock would have loved the Twitter headquarters here. Birds gathering everywhere, painted on the wall in flocks, perched on the coffee table, stitched on pillows and framed on the wall with a thought bubble asking employees to please tidy up after themselves.”

The mention was a droll nod to one of Hitchcock’s masterworks, “The Birds”, a horror film about a small town invaded by endless flocks of psychotic winged killers. Using the reference, she showed the depth of the siege mentality that has taken over the masters of traditional media as their revenues are overtaken by the emergence of new media and the increasing pace of defection among readers and advertisers.

Her premise for the interview revealed a bit more about her bias and a lot more about her attitude towards the newly empowered Tweetering class.

“I was here on a simple quest: curious to know if the inventors of Twitter were as annoying as their invention. (They’re not. They’re charming.)

I sat down with Biz Stone, 35, and Evan Williams, 37, and asked them to justify themselves.”

Twitter has taken mainstream America by storm over the past few days riding on a wave which has been building for almost six months. When the reigning queen of American mass market taste Oprah Winfrey made her first Tweet on TV earlier this week, the extraordinary mini-blog/instant messaging application received an endorsement that pushes even the most mediocre actor, writer or in this case, killer-app towards mega-stardom and success.

Ms. Dowd seems happier than an un-caged bird to try to lead a backlash against that success. Luckily, Evan Williams and Biz Stone were willing to show their own annoyance while answering her leading and sometimes silly questions.

“ME (Dowd): Is there any thought that doesn’t need to be published?
BIZ: The one I’m thinking right now.”

Ms. Dowd continued to push at Stone and Williams, even to the point of accusing them of attempting to destroy civilization,

“ME: Was there anything in your childhood that led you to want to destroy civilization as we know it?
BIZ: You mean enhance civilization, make it even better?”

Throughout the interview, Ms. Dowd continues to try to trip her subjects into saying something careless or stupid. Instead of trying to learn more about the technology and its applications, she tried to trivialize her subject and its inventors. What emerges amounts to a sad commentary that is more based in bias than the clarity her curiosity usually produces. Ironically, Twitter might actually be a saving grace for newspapers, at least for the the less profitable but far more accessible online versions.

Brent D. Payne, the Director of Search Engine Optimization for the Tribune Company has been one of those in the forefront of smart use of Twitter to draw readers to nearly 60 websites owned and operated by the Tribune Company. Similarly, Marshall Simmons, the SEO for Ms. Dowd’s employer, The New York Times, uses Twitter to push and promote stories from the NYTimes and associated newspapers.

Towards the end of the interview, Ms. Dowd remains unconvinced of any benefits she or her industry might derive from Twitter. That’s unfortunate and the state of traditional media might well be summed up by the last volley of question and answer between her and Biz Stone,

“ME: I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account. Is there anything you can say to change my mind?
BIZ: Well, when you do find yourself in that position, you’re gonna want Twitter. You might want to type out the message “Help.””

While we remain wary of a perceived decline in print journalism, we shed no tears for old media bias.

Guy Kawasaki Talks Twitter Live on PPCRockstars, 4PM Monday

Venture Capitalist and online entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki will appear on WebmasterRadio.FM’s PPC Rockstars, hosted by David Szetela, on Monday April 20, to discuss and defend comments he made during his keynote speech to the 2009 Search Engine Strategies New York Conference. Kawasaki’s controversial comments involved the use of the extremely popular social media application Twitter for commercial and personal promotional purposes.

Guy Kawasaki has an enormous number of followers on Twitter. With over 100,000 users receiving hundreds of Twitter comments he makes each day, Kawasaki has become a lightning rod attracting praise and criticism for his mass marketing efforts. Some have called him brilliant while others say his ideas could lead to the ruin of Twitter as an effective communications tool. There is a wide and vocal debate about his tactics within the digital marketing sector.

WebmasterRadio.FM will be presenting a special episode of PPC Rockstars to give Guy Kawasaki the opportunity to speak directly to the search and digital marketing community about his comments. During the broadcast, Kawasaki and Szetela will take questions posed by listeners via Twitter, sent directly to the Twitter addresses @GuyKawasaki, @Szetela and @WebmasterRadio. Twitter users can watch and participate in the online conversation by following the hash tag #ppcrockstars, and by including that hash tag in their Tweets.

“I’m very grateful to Guy for agreeing to this interview,” said David Szetela. “We’re looking forward to some lively discussion, insider Twitter tips and witty repartee. Just in case, Guy will be wearing his virtual hockey mask.”

This will be one of the first massive interactive online radio broadcasts using Twitter and certainly one of the largest. Combining the resources and efforts of WebmasterRadio.FM, Guy Kawasaki, David Szetela and others in the digital marketing community, WebmasterRadio.FM expects to push promotion of the interview to over 750,000 Twitter users in a seven-day period. Promotion for the show has already begun with a Twitter re-tweet campaign which started on Monday April 13.

Dark Arts PPC Tweet-up w/Marty Weintraub on PPC Rockstars

Social media and PPC master Marty Weintraub from aimClear joins Clix Marketing founder David Szetela on the PPC Rockstars this afternoon at 4PM EDT on WebmasterRadio.FM.

Both David and Marty are considered innovative pioneers in the use of Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools, along with their extraordinary powers of PPC marketing.

Listeners are invited to join the conversation today via Twitter by using the hashmark, #ppcrockstars.

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