PalatnikFactor.com

If there is one guy there is buzz around in the online industry right now, it’s Jason Calacanis, CEO of human powered search engine Mahalo.

I have to admit, everytime Mahalo comes up in a conversation, I think to myself, “where the hell does this guy think he’s going to go with this? Does he think he can really compete with Google, Yahoo, etc. Are those really his intentions?”

After hearing him speak yesterday at SES New York, I have a whole new outlook on Mahalo. I don’t think its trying to compete against any search engines, I think it will provide a new type of search for searchers.

It is DMOZ 2.0. It is a complex directory that will, what I think, become not a replacement for Google, but a new hub and authority directory that will be spam free. He announced very cool things that we will see out of Mahalo.

SEO WILL BE TRANSPARENT. Mahalo will provide customer service to SEOs to answer why you’re site isn’t ranking, ranking worse than other sites, etc.

Mahalo is aiming at creating an engine/directory of semantic relationships between people and objects. Mahalo will in fact be a social hub for search, making search a lot more personal in terms of what your “friends” on Mahalo think.

Jason stated the future of search if part machine, part human, and part social. Mahalo has some VERY interesting tools (social hub for submitting links) I never saw until yesterday so I really suggest you check it out and play around with it. It also seems like a place where you can make some money on the side by taking on accepting projects (making pages) for the directory.

Today, the U.S. announced it plans to draft a law to allow the government to access your email or web search. UMMMM…Privacy anyone? Listen, we know, its to protect America from terrorist and that’s great…but how far can it go before peoples civil rights are violated…especially in the web space where things are so easy to manipulate.

As an online marketer, one thing I have learned and as all of you online marketers know, people are very concerned with privacy rights and the way information is being transferred online.

Raw Story reports on this news and has the following statements and quotes:

"Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search," author Lawrence Wright pens.

“Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation, he said," Wright adds. "Giorgio warned me, 'we have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"
This actually puts Google in an odd place I think, what are they going to do? Deny government access? No.

The real deal is that they can watch as much as they want but the activity online, searches in Google, Yahoo and other engines is of such magnitude that it will almost be impossible to watch everything and take up a lot of intelligence resources.

This is just announced so it should play out MAYBE in late 2008 and maybe 2009, that’s my opinion anyway.

If you’re wondering what or how Google will continue to come out with new marketing channels for advertisers, MOBILE is the target at the moment.

Now, from what I’ve read and understand from a short press release from Google, it is basically Google Maps for mobile.

“With Google's new My Location technology, users who don't have GPS-enabled mobile phones will now be able to take advantage of the added speed and convenience afforded by location information. The My Location technology also complements GPS-enabled devices, as it delivers a location estimate faster than GPS, provides coverage inside buildings (where GPS signals can be unreliable), and doesn't drain phone batteries as quickly as GPS. Whether users are trying to locate a restaurant in an unfamiliar neighborhood, get directions to the nearest hotel while traveling, or just find a place to grab some coffee while shopping for the holidays, Google Maps for mobile with My Location can help them get what they need quickly and easily.”

So, why does Google spend all this money on technology for a GPS system? Google can care less about a GPS system, but with the amount of people that will download this free tool to their cell phone, the opportunity to make money of the advertising is incredible! Google doesn’t do or create anything without advertising in mind. Watch Google earth keep coming out with different versions and you’ll see ads there at some point, unless they really keep that one application for what it really is, which is just plain awesome.

The Google GPS can have a great impact on local advertisers for the obvious. It’s by far one of the best forms of local marketing…you have someone on their mobile while they are out trying to find something and BAM, they can find you right away while being near you.

So far, it’s just starting so its early to tell how it’ll play out with advertisers but it seems promising.

While Google engages in PageRank warfare against its algorithmic enemies (sites that sell links,) the latest to see the wrath are pay-per-post publishers (maybe advertisers to…) Months ago (if I can find the post or on some guest post) I blogged about how the pay-per-post business model would be VERY hurt by Google’s move on going after link sellers. Is this actually a surprise to anyone?

The pay-per-post business model depends a lot on Google’s pagerank. Obviously, a post on a pagerank of 5 would cost a lot more than on a pagerank of 3 and so on.

Techcrunch reports, “IZEA (the new holding company for PayPerPost) CEO Ted Murphy is not surprisingly calling foul on the move, claiming that it’s part of some sort of censorship conspiracy by Google. Better still Murphy claims that it’s part of Google’s attempts to deny competition because PayPerPost is a “a very attractive alternative” to Adsense.

Murphy goes on to claim that TechCrunch should be punished because our occasional posts thanking sponsors (like this one) is nothing different to what PayPerPost bloggers do.”

Here is one thing I learned a long time ago…NEVER BASE YOUR BUSINESS -MODEL ON GOOGLE. Pay-Per-Post needs to have or should have a different pricing structure for bloggers maybe based on traffic to blog instead of pagerank…BUT here is thing. Many advertisers use bloggers as an SEO strategy.

I think we’ll see a change soon within pay-per-post and how it may change its business model regarding pagerank. If you want to advertise using a service like pay-per-post or reviewme, use it for branding and marketing purposes, not SEO, it might come back to haunt you.

It’s about that time of year when you’re probably having your best sales to date since the holidays are around the corner and people are starting to shop as of now.

If you’re selling a product on your website, besides having quality pictures of the product itself and good content, what else could entice the user to make the purchase? PEER FEEDBACK. I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while now until I just saw this research study by the e-tailing group which proves this very important aspect of shopping online.

Reviews from buyers are so important…buyers are sheep (for the most part) and that’s why trends become trends…people tend to follow other people if other people think its good or cool. Product reviews act as that for many online buyers.

“The study sought (1) to understand how online shoppers use reviews to make informed buying decisions, and (2) to explore consumers’ preferences and interests in “Social Navigation” - or the ability to narrow product selections based on reviews from like-minded people with similar interests.
Some 70% of all online shoppers said customer reviews and ratings on a retailer’s website were extremely or very important when they are selecting and purchasing products, followed by 62% citing a top-rated products list (as rated by customers):

Among the respondents, 65% were identified as Social Researchers - consumers who actively (always or most of the time) seek out and read customer reviews prior to making a purchase decision:

Social Researchers were found to engage in the use of reviews across all behavioral areas at a rate 20% higher than average online shoppers:

* 86% of Social Researchers find customer reviews extremely or very important, vs. 70% of all online shoppers.
* 76% of Social Researchers find “top rated product” lists to be extremely or very important, vs. 62% of all online shoppers.
* 64% of Social Researchers research products online more than half the time, no matter where they buy the product (store, web, catalog, etc.)

How online shoppers, particularly Social Researchers, perceive Social Navigation was also examined.

* Some 82% of Social Researchers (vs. 75% of all online shoppers) found reading reviews better than researching a product in-store with a knowledgeable sales associate.
* 76% of Social Researchers (vs. 69% of all online shoppers) are more likely to shop on a retailer’s website - vs. its competitor site - if it offers social navigation.
* 75% of Social Researches (vs. 64% of all online shoppers) found it extremely or very helpful to narrow product selection based on feedback from people like them (with similar interests).

If you are selling product on your website, I'd advise to start putting up some product reviews or ratings and test if it starts to convert better.

Ask.com has spent about $100 million in advertising and branding its search engine to the public. I think they put a really good marketing campaign but nevertheless, with market share growing, so have the market share of the other 2 giants, Google and Yahoo…even MSN.

Is Ask.com a legitimate competitor in the search market? Yes and no. If you’re an online marketer, you’re not seeing great results from you ask.com campaigns if you’re running campaigns in the search engine, even though they still use Google results in their paid search results as well. I’m not even sure if Ask.com has an Adsense program but if they do, they are hurting in that market as well.

Now, for the general public, as a website and product, I really do like ask.com. I think it’s a unique search engine offering a different type of search for the user. If you haven’t done a search in a while, you’d be really surprise as how it has developed from a year or two years ago. It loads a bit slow but that’s because it pulls images, videos, etc…and obviously doesn’t have the hosting power Google does.

Hitwise reports, “…Ask's share of executed searches in the U.S. growing 23.7% from 3.49% of all executed searches in August 2007 to 4.32% of executed searches in September 2007.”

But then again, MarketingVox reports, “everybody had a good September. Google and Yahoo gained more search market share in September than Ask, with Google jumping to 63.55 percent of all searches. Even AOL caught up to and surpassed Ask.”

It comes down to owning properties and how many partnerships each engine has to distribute ads. Millions of sites display Google adsense…there is the key to Google, besides making billions of the engine search itself with the Adwords platform. Yahoo Publisher Network has some good distribution but doesn’t come close to Adsnese…and now Microsoft is in the game landing Digg as a distributors and probably other big sites.

Where is Ask in all of this? They will have to form partnerships and have a good ad distribution channel and volume to compete in the search market.