Two Cents

Google is a company that has a mission to make the world’s information as universally accessible as possible. And, in their Code of Conduct they state their philosphy is “Don’t be evil.” Both of these seem at odds with how the company operates in China.

In 2006 Google entered the world’s fast-growing internet market by agreeing to censor its search services in China. Everything from sites like Facebook, Twitter and a blog with photos of puppies called Cute Overload as well as key words like ‘human  rights’ and ‘Tiananmen Square’ are all fair game to be blocked (see this wonderful infographic of some of the words and URLs that China has on their restricted access list).

But after some highly sophisticated and targeted attacks originating from China that involved trying to breach the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, Google is about to enter a self-imposed China exile.

Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, wrote in a post on the company blog.

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Seems like a big decision considering China’s number of internet users is now 384 million. But with only around 25-30% of the search market, Google has never had the same success in China that it has had in Australia, the US or other countries. Local search services like Baidu, and Sina.com provide a product more attuned to local consumers’ needs and the Chinese population being very nationalistic were always somewhat wary of the American search giant.

While Google’s position is certainly commendable from an advocacy of open information and human rights perspective, it is a little late for Google to grow a conscience now by taking a moral position four years too late. Obviously they are concerned about attacks against their users, technology infrastructure and intellectual property but I see this as mostly a business decision by Google to exit a costly restricted market.

I recently discussed the Google/China stand off during my segment with Kelly-Higgins Devine on ABC 612 Brisbane.

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Have a listen by clicking the play button above and tell me if you think Google has made the right decision and if you think it was made on moral or business grounds.

Anthony Dever is an Interactive Strategist at BCM

This morning I decided to temporarily stop using Google Search after almost 10 years of making daily requests to the world’s most popular search engine.

It isn’t because Google has done anything wrong in particular. Ok, it does feel a little creepy the way it tracks each and every search I do. And Google has developed the bad habit of being a near monopolistic search provider in most markets that it competes in, which doesn’t quite ring true to their “don’t be evil” mantra. Still, as a member of an interactive marketing team that utilises the power of Google every day to drive traffic to our client’s web sites through search engine marketing and optimisation. I think these not so desirable behaviours can be easily explained away.

Even as a regular internet user, Google provides me with mostly relevant search results that I’m satisfied with. It just disappoints me that a company which reinvented the concept of search engines has not continued innovating their core search product as much as I think they could have.

The rise of the social web has meant the way people use the internet has evolved. I need a search engine that will help me discover, interact and organise this new structure of content, networks and conversations. Google currently fails to do this.

Which is why I will be actively using four innovative search engines; Worio, Spezify, CrowdEye and Viewzi as my primary search tools for the next month. I will report back at the end of August here on Two Cents telling the world how I faired without Google Search.

It feels a little like I’m ending a relationship and breaking up with Google but I think it is all for the best.

I would love to know if you are happy with using Google Search or if you think another search engine would ever be able to topple the search behemoth?

Anthony Dever is BCM’s Interactive Strategist

There’s a nasty rumour that I am algorithmist. This is simply not true. Algorithms make the world go round.

IF the sun is rising in the east THEN day is approaching. IF the clock says 3.00pm THEN my dogs want to be fed.

My son Sam and I used to write algorithms in BASIC for his school computing projects. We once even alphabetised a whole list of words at a single keystroke. Huge fun.

My beef is with algorithms that lurk on the dark side. Algorithms that work for the good of evil. The Tax Office’s computer has lots of algorithms waiting to pounce on the unwary whose data falls outside algorithmic criteria. IF deductible expenses increase by > 11.23361% THEN shoot off a please explain letter.

Pay an invoice leaving a zero balance and some faulty algorithm may send you an invoice a month later to pay $0.00. Fail to pay and the algorithm will trigger a mildly threatening letter to be followed some time later with a letter threatening court action. Algorithms have no mercy. Simply send a payment for $0.00 and the algorithm will slink off in search of another victim.

But there are a gazillion friendly algorithms that tell your watch if the month has 30 or 31 days. That figure out that the Brisbane (or Melbourne) you are looking for is in Australia, not the US. That advise Amazon to let you know that Dylan has a new album out soon because it knows you are a fan.

Goodness knows how many algorithms are in my car, adjusting the seat and mirrors to meet my likes; that know that IF the lumens entering the sensor fall below some predetermined level THEN turn the headlights on. And what the clever little fellas are doing inside my engine doesn’t bear thinking about.

And surely Google, Bing and Yahoo are up there as the world’s greatest algorithm wranglers. They know you better than your next door neighbour. They won’t waste your time giving you links to Dylan Thomas (that’s him pictured at the top) when it’s Bob Dylan you are after.

(That said, if you want to hear Richard Burton read of the “bible black, fishing boat, bobbing sea” in Under Milk Wood then go for it. But IF it’s, “traces of skipping reels of rhyme” for you THEN off to Amazon.com.)

But I am becoming obsessive now.

IF you start becoming algorithm obsessive THEN stop writing.

Want to book a centre seat, 6 rows back at a concert hall? Sorry not yet, we’re selling off the rubbish seats on the side at the back first.

Want to pull your fighter jet into a 10g climb? Computer says no, that would exceed predetermined stress levels.

Want to Google the lyrics, “The rhythm of life is a powerful beat” to find the source? Can do but Google will decide what it thinks you REALLY want to know. Google runs on a shipping container (or ten) full of algorithms.

Algorithms are at work.

And as per the “Sweet Charity” song lyrics, “The algorithm of life is a powerful beat”.

Want to use your frequent flyer points to make a tourist flight around Australia 9 months from now? No way Jose the allocation of frequent flyer seats is determined by an algorithm that does not match your needs.

Algorithms are clever little pieces of calculation code, essentially IF/THEN equations and they are everywhere in our digital world. And they are held in seemingly impenetrable black boxes. Scream as loudly as you like at your keyboard you will still not be able to get a better seat than ZZ 65 at the concert. The algorithm is keeping the better seats to release later – “IF the crap seats are all sold THEN release some better ones”.

So if you are worried about the day AI (Artificial Intelligence) will outsmart you then worry no more, we are all living in a sort of trainer AI mode already with algorithms everywhere you look already outsmarting you.

I’ve always loved reading reference materials, and probably always will. So if anyone out there had any doubt left in them that I’m not a total dweeb, banish those doubts now. But I’m unashamed in my love of absorbing facts, figures, diagrams and histories.

Growing up, those facts came almost exclusively from the set of encyclopaedias that my parents had filled a bookshelf with. These days, I’m guessing kids cruise round on Wikipedia or just Google whatever it is they’re interested in.

This week, to much fanfare, a new search engine was launched which adds another weapon to any fact-finder’s arsenal. It’s called Wolfram Alpha, and bills itself as a ‘computational search engine’. It’s built on a well-known scientific database called Mathematica, which was built by a genius by the name of Stephen Wolfram (hence the name of the search engine).

Wolfram Alpha is a little different from Google. It’s very powerful, but only within the constraints of the Mathematica database. Ask it a question about any science-related field, such as maths, engineering, geography or physics, and it will tell you everything it knows about your search query, in a nicely presented layout. It’s not too bad at some more ‘humanistic’ questions too, concerning music and sports.

The best way to get your head around it is, of course, to give it a go. Here’s some sample searches I tried:

• GDP Australia Switzerland
• Distance Brisbane New York
• Probability Royal Flush

Check out the examples section for some more great stuff.

Worlfram Alpha is like taking all those reference tomes I devoured as a kid and being able to cross-reference them in any way imaginable. It’s a great insight into how search engines will evolve to contain more ‘deep web’ information – all the juicy stuff stashed away in databases at the moment. And for a fact fiend like me, it’s also quite a bit of fun.

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This week:

• The rise and rise of the smart phone
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• A newspaper becomes a platform
• For sale – by SMS
• Social networking passes email usage in uptake
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Journos love a good story about the latest social networking craze. News outlets have been full of stories about Facebook and Myspace for years. But now, it seems, there’s a new kids on the block. Twitter. The runt of the social media pack has finally gone mainstream, leaving nobody in any doubt that the micro-blogging upstart has arrived. Whether you ‘get it’ or actually use it is another matter altogether, but it doesn’t stop the media latching on. Witness the hysteria in the Sydney Morning Herald recently:

• Politicians twitter throughout address to Congress like bored schoolchildren
• Armstrong’s Twitter plea: find my stolen bike
• Twittering celebs tell all from Oscars parties

Despite the hype, Twitter is very much a David to the Facebook Goliath. A quick look at Google search volumes over the last 12 months shows us (click for larger image):

The above image tells us less about Twitter’s booming popularity, and more about the sheer volume of Facebook searches – an incredibly large amount. Twitter has some way to go before it comes anywhere near the popularity of a Facebook or Myspace.

Nonetheless, if you’re the kind of person that likes to make sure they’re abreast of what’s happening, take the Two Week Twitter Challenge (an idea stolen directly from BCM digital god and Twitter addict Michael) and give it a good solid go for a fortnight. Add all your friends and see if it sticks. It’s worth a try!

As much as I love hearing about brands doing amazing new things in the interactive space, I also love hearing about tried and true performers. Amongst all the hype around social media, performance ad networks, mobile applications and whatever is next on the hype machine, it’s nice to know most marketers are pretty damn happy with the mainstay of electronic communication: email.

A recent study in the USA by Datran media has found that:

E-mail leads all other channels by a wide margin in terms of performance for their companies. 80.4% of more than 3,000 executives surveyed chose e-mail as a strong advertising performer, compared to 56.8% who chose search, the second leading performer.

When you consider just how much search dominates the conversation amongst marketers, and the billions of dollars in Google’s coffers, this is a pretty resounding message: email works. Time and again the personalised, direct and immediate nature of email shines through as a true marketing performer.

This is of course reflected in what we see day-to-day at BCM. Nothing drives traffic like electronic direct mail. NOTHING. Of course, it has to be done properly, and the message must be relevant, and resonate with the receiver. I’d like to think we do a lot of that!

Marketers’ faith in email is reflected in their intentions for this year: 59% are increasing their spend on email this year, again higher than search, at 54%. Pretty impressive.

There’s an addendum to all this good news for email, though. Brands that haven’t taken the required steps to build an appropriate data strategy, don’t have their database in order, don’t have a clear strategy for managing their customer relationship, and don’t have a detailed plan for how to develop it, will miss out on all the great benefits that email brings. Is it time to give your email strategy a little bit of love?

I’d like to start this blog post with a quote:

“Online advertising is not, by any stretch, always direct-response advertising. In the offline world, media analysts don’t think of an immediate reaction to TV or print ad.” – ComScore CEO Gian Fulgoni

Indeed. Why is it that we place such high expectations on the impact of online advertising compared to offline?

The obvious answer is, of course, measurability. It is precisely because we can tell exactly how many people have clicked on an ad, what proportion of impressions were clicked, and how many acquisitions have resulted from those clicks that we expect so much of online advertising.

The loser in this equation, unfortunately, is the online publisher. While Google reaps the rewards of gazillions of clicks on their search ads, too little has been asked of the impact of how the Googler got there in the first place. Sure, it might have been TV, radio or word of mouth. But it could have just as easily been because they saw an online display ad at a news, entertainment or social networking site.

The argument in favour of publishers and the power of online branding via display ads has struggled in the past, from simple lack of evidence. But things are starting to change.

Last year, the Australian Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) released a long-awaited study which found:

Intention to purchase Sultana Bran increased an impressive 37 percent and brand consideration increased 17 percent when consumers were exposed to online ads versus a control group not exposed to any of the Sultana Bran creative online.

More recent research from Comscore in the USA has found that:

Online ads, even when they didn’t result in a click, increased a consumer’s likelihood of making a purchase at an advertiser’s retail store by 17% and increased visits to a marketer’s website by an average of 40%.

So there you have it. But how can publishers get a better deal from advertisers for being the important conduit they appear to be?

One way is through better attribution of purchase to previous exposure to online advertising. Technology like Microsoft’s Atlas Engagement Mapping is working to track a user journey from exposure through to research and final purchase. For a great read, check out their report “The Long Road To Conversion: The Digital Purchase Funnel” [PDF].

The moral of this story? Don’t assume your online ad campaign hasn’t strengthened your brand on the basis of how many clicks you’ve received… unless you’re willing to write off your TV and radio campaign in the same way!