Watch the video they launched at the Super Bowl:
Monday, February 7, 2011
It's Coming! The Motorola Zoom [VIDEO]
Something I've been waiting for and I predict will be a game changer for the tablet market: Motorola Zoom.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
From Google Blog: Bing is copying Google Search results
In doing basic search optimization, I've always focused on Google results, yet mindful of the fact that Yahoo uses Bing to power their search results, and Yahoo still being a major part of search in the Philippines.
It's difficult enough to figure out the intricacies of the Google Search algorithm, but reading that Bing copies Google's search engine results just validates what I thought was the right thing to do. You optimize for Google, more or less you're optimized for Yahoo & Bing. It's not best practice, but it's what you resort to with clients who are not willing to pay the extra buck for more fine-tuned search optimization.
Read the story below, then read Bing's response: http://searchengineland.com/bing-admits-using-customer-search-data-says-google-pulled-spy-novelesque-stunt-63162
Tell me what you think.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Microsoft’s Bing uses Google search results—and denies it
2/01/2011 02:56:00 PM
By now, you may have read Danny Sullivan’s recent post: “Google: Bing is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results” and heard Microsoft’s response, “We do not copy Google's results.” However you define copying, the bottom line is, these Bing results came directly from Google.I’d like to give you some background and details of our experiments that lead us to understand just how Bing is using Google web search results.
It all started with tarsorrhaphy. Really. As it happens, tarsorrhaphy is a rare surgical procedure on eyelids. And in the summer of 2010, we were looking at the search results for an unusual misspelled query [torsorophy]. Google returned the correct spelling—tarsorrhaphy—along with results for the corrected query. At that time, Bing had no results for the misspelling. Later in the summer, Bing started returning our first result to their users without offering the spell correction (see screenshots below). This was very strange. How could they return our first result to their users without the correct spelling? Had they known the correct spelling, they could have returned several more relevant results for the corrected query.
We couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on, and our suspicions became much stronger in late October 2010 when we noticed a significant increase in how often Google’s top search result appeared at the top of Bing’s ranking for a variety of queries. This statistical pattern was too striking to ignore. To test our hypothesis, we needed an experiment to determine whether Microsoft was really using Google’s search results in Bing’s ranking.
We created about 100 “synthetic queries”—queries that you would never expect a user to type, such as [hiybbprqag]. As a one-time experiment, for each synthetic query we inserted as Google’s top result a unique (real) webpage which had nothing to do with the query. Below is an example:
To be clear, the synthetic query had no relationship with the inserted result we chose—the query didn’t appear on the webpage, and there were no links to the webpage with that query phrase. In other words, there was absolutely no reason for any search engine to return that webpage for that synthetic query. You can think of the synthetic queries with inserted results as the search engine equivalent of marked bills in a bank.
We gave 20 of our engineers laptops with a fresh install of Microsoft Windows running Internet Explorer 8 with Bing Toolbar installed. As part of the install process, we opted in to the “Suggested Sites” feature of IE8, and we accepted the default options for the Bing Toolbar.
We asked these engineers to enter the synthetic queries into the search box on the Google home page, and click on the results, i.e., the results we inserted. We were surprised that within a couple weeks of starting this experiment, our inserted results started appearing in Bing. Below is an example: a search for [hiybbprqag] on Bing returned a page about seating at a theater in Los Angeles. As far as we know, the only connection between the query and result is Google’s result page (shown above).
We saw this happen for multiple queries. For the query [delhipublicschool40 chdjob] we inserted a search result for a credit union:
The same credit union soon showed up on Bing for that query:
For the query [juegosdeben1ogrande] we inserted a page of hip hop bling jewelry:
And the same hip hop bling page showed up in Bing:
As we see it, this experiment confirms our suspicion that Bing is using some combination of:
- Internet Explorer 8, which can send data to Microsoft via its Suggested Sites feature
- the Bing Toolbar, which can send data via Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program
At Google we strongly believe in innovation and are proud of our search quality. We’ve invested thousands of person-years into developing our search algorithms because we want our users to get the right answer every time they search, and that’s not easy. We look forward to competing with genuinely new search algorithms out there—algorithms built on core innovation, and not on recycled search results from a competitor. So to all the users out there looking for the most authentic, relevant search results, we encourage you to come directly to Google. And to those who have asked what we want out of all this, the answer is simple: we'd like for this practice to stop.
From Campaign Singapore: Petronas' Chinese New Year ad by LB Malaysia
One of the most important things I've learned working in the Leo Burnett network is that creativity has the power to change behavior. Finding a brand's HumanKind purpose leads to great acts, including advertising stories that move people.
I see this again in this new Petronas ad for Chinese New Year from Leo Burnett Malaysia. Great work, guys!
Gong Xi Fa Cai!
See the ad below and the feature article about it from Campaigns Singapore.
-----------------------------------------------
Leo Burnett Malaysia launches Petronas Chinese New Year ad
KUALA LUMPUR - Leo Burnett has launched Petronas’ annual Chinese New Year campaign with a commercial highlighting the importance of family bonds and filial piety.
Leo Burnett launches the Petronas Chinese New Year ad today.
Petronas' Chinese New Year campaign rolls out today across Malaysian TV channels. A touching twist to Chinese New Year ads, 'Their hope' explores the silent wishes of a group of elderly citizens in a changing society where parents are often taken for granted as their children relentlessly pursue success and independence.
The 90-second TV commercial will be supported by print and digital, and this campaign also marks the first time a Facebook application has been developed for the annual CNY festive campaign. Created by Leo Burnett Malaysia, the campaign brings a collection of insights and thoughts from parents who express their hopes and wishes for this Lunar New Year.
By highlighting their wishes, the Petronas festive commercial drives home how easy it is to bring joy and a smile to the elderly – by spending more time with them and giving them the love, respect, attention and understanding that they deserve.
Since its debut in 1996, festive advertisements by Petronas have been capturing the hearts and minds of Malaysians through storytelling - sharing simple but heart-warming stories that are reflective of moral values, cultural diversity, harmony and tradition that play an important role in Malaysians’ daily lives.
Credits:
Project 'Their hope'
Client Petroliam National Berhad (PETRONAS)
Creative agency Leo Burnett Kuala Lumpur
Creative director Tan Yew Leong
Writer Ken Wong/Jovian Lee
Art director Ken Wong Woon Kian
Production company Chilly Pepper
Director Tan Yew Leong
Editor Affendi of Mirage
Post production APV
Exposure TV, press and online (Facebook and FB applications)
Monday, January 31, 2011
From Vitrue: Facebook Insights Improvements
One thing I liked about Facebook was it's simplicity when it started. But after the Facebook boom in 2010, our clients started looking for better metrics to track activity on Facebook pages. Facebook's Insights definitely paled in comparison vs something like Google Analytics and the rest of the paid analytics tools out there.
So, it's a welcome surprise Facebook is stepping up on giving us marketers more data to analyze. Facebook is still pretty much a closed-wall garden, and while Google has been working on getting Facebook content into its search results, it looks like Facebook is doing the same by going out of Facebook to provide analytics outside Facebook, which usually is Google territory.
I just can't wait to see how these developments pan out.
Read below an article describing the new features of Facebook Insights from vitrue.com.
--------------------------------------------------
Santa Came Early This Year - New Facebook Insights Features!
The new updates make Facebook Insights much easier to interpret. New features, such as “Like Sources” and auto-calculating Weekly Active Users, provide valuable information about where new fans come from. Brands and marketers will now be able to make more educated inferences and utilize Facebook Insights exports in a more manageable fashion.
Filtering by Date Range
Previous functionalities would only allow you to export data by date range, instead of having the ability to view date-constrained metrics within native Facebook Insights. This enhancement packs loads of holiday cheer because the native graphs, charts, and metrics within Insights can be constrained and customized. This new feature affects metrics like Tab Views, geo-centric data, and Stream Posts performance data…in a very merry way. In a red and green nutshell, this feature allows you to use Insights-generated graphs and charts to the fullest extent.
Like Sources
Having a sleigh-full of fans is great and all but where do they even come from? This added feature is invaluable to brands and marketers. Why? Because gaining insight to where new fans are coming from allows admins to execute educated future promotions and understand their new fan base. For instance, if Santa’s fan page received 18,362 new fans in the past week from Search, this would give Old Saint Nick a good idea of the interest in his page.
Media Consumption
This new feature allows admins to see how media is performing on the page. So, if Santa decided he wanted to post more videos in December than he did in November, he could compare the performance of the greater number of videos to the lesser number of videos in the previous month.
Get Insights for your Domain
Facebook appears to be expanding their reach to the North Pole of the internet by allowing Facebook users to use Insights analytics for their own non-Facebook domains. How do you think this will affect use of Google Analytics?
Analytics-inspired Yuletide cheer is spreading all around Vitrue today. Thank you Facebook, your gift is in the mail.
For more information on Insights, visit Facebook’s developer entry here.
Friday, January 28, 2011
From BGR: A Facebook mobile phone?
Ooh! A Facebook-branded phone! How cool is that? Will Facebook now enter into the device race? Will they have a separate track on the Android build? Anything seems possible at this point.
I love how HTC knows who to partner with. I'm so happy with my Google Nexus One phone, it was quite disappointing how Google dropped HTC to partner with Samsung for the next gen Nexus S. Having a pure native device is cool because you get all the firmware updates early. I know it's the Apple model also, but I still don't like Apple for its snobbish stance to the open-source community. Yay to Facebook & HTC, boo to Apple.
[UPDATE] Facebook has denied that the phones will be Facebook-branded. See Mashable's report on this: http://mashable.com/2011/01/27/facebook-denies-facebook-phone/
--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
Facebook to launch two branded smartphones at MWC, report claims
Facebook will announce two Facebook-branded smartphones at next month’s Mobile World Congress according to a new report from City A.M. The report contradicts Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s earlier claim that the company was not working on branded cell phones, but was instead working to create a better, more comprehensive Facebook experience across existing mobile platforms. HTC will build the new Facebook phones according to the report, and they will feature branding and coloring in line with Facebook’s website. City A.M.goes on to state that the devices will run a modified build of Google’s Android operating system that will display information from a user’s Facebook account on the home screen. Details pertaining to pricing and availability are not yet available.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
From Mashable: Faebook Stories -- A New Social Ad Format Uses User-Generated Content
As a digital marketer, I've seen how user-generated content has become a more compelling way to tell a brand story, vis-a-vis just the plain old marketing message from advertising. This new ad format created from Facebook could very well be able to operationalize that to an advertiser's advantage.
I do think there will be an initial backlash to this due to privacy issues, but I really think Facebook's principles with the Open Graph has revolutionizes social computing and privacy options will more and more be the responsibility of the user rather than the platform. Agree that Facebook needs to inform its users of the privacy issues and that it should give easy options for users to keep their information private. But the openness of the Facebook architecture has driven this social change that has created the socially-enabled experience of the Web that we see today.
Here's Ben Parr's story on Mashable on Facebook Stories
Facebook Turns Friend Activity Into New Ad Format
Sponsored Stories is “a way for marketers to sponsor activities that happen throughout the News Feed,” Facebook Product Marketing Lead Jim Squires told Mashable. Companies can choose to take certain user actions — such as checkins or actions within Facebook apps — and feature them in the column on the right side of the News Feed.
For example, if you’re Whole Foods and you’re looking to increase your exposure on Facebook, you can pay to have a percentage of all checkins to Whole Foods featured in a Sponsored Stories slot in the right-side column. Your content wouldn’t be shown directly, but the actions of a user’s friends would appear. Users seeing their friends “liking” or checking in to Whole Foods will drive increased trust and increased traffic.
“The advertiser is not controlling the message; it’s about actions,” Squires said.
Here’s an example of an action that could potentially be sponsored:
And here’s what it might look like as a Sponsored Story:
Starting today, four specific types of user actions can be turned into featured stories: likes, checkins, actions within custom applications and Page posts. If a company has a custom app (e.g. Starbucks Card or evenFarmVille), it can promote the actions users take within them. The same is true of users posting on the walls of their favorite brands.
Facebook’s roster of launch partners includes Coke, Levi’s, Anheuser Busch and Playfish. Also, the social network is partnering with a slew of nonprofits for Sponsored Stories, including Donors Choose, Girl Up!, Malaria No More, Amnesty International, Women for Women, Autism Speaks, (RED), Alzheimer’s Association and UNICEF. However, anybody will be able to bid on Sponsored Story slots (by a per-impression and/or a per-click basis) starting January 25.
We haven’t seen Facebook play with new ad formats for a while — most of its revenue comes from the targeted advertising that appears on most Facebook pages. It has been timid about new ad formats after the spectacular failure of Beacon. Sponsored Stories seems like a simple and logical way to introduce new forms of advertising into Facebook’s system, though.
Sponsored Stories has a lot of similarities to Twitter Promoted Tweets. Both are trying to use content from within their networks and turn them into advertising dollars. There is one key difference between Sponsored Stories and Promoted Tweets, though: The user defines the advertised content in Facebook’s format, not the advertiser.
It’s that one little difference Facebook hopes will turn into big bucks.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Tapping Blogs for Online Campaigns [VIDEO]: An interview by Janette Toral
It's been a while since I posted on this blog. But I'm happy to say, I'm back!
Let me begin with this video of Janette Toral interviewing me for DigitalFilipino.com.
I don't like seeing myself on video, but I'd like to think I'm comfortable enough being in front of the camera... well maybe not yet as comfortable as I should look on cam.
I don't like seeing myself on video, but I'd like to think I'm comfortable enough being in front of the camera... well maybe not yet as comfortable as I should look on cam.
Thanks, Janette, for the opportunity.
http://digitalfilipinocom.ning.com/video/tapping-blogs-for-online
http://digitalfilipinocom.ning.com/video/tapping-blogs-for-online
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)