Bing ads just might be working. Microsoft's paid click share is up 44%
Microsoft may have received heckles when the company announced plans to spend $100 million advertising its new search engine Bing. But two month into that outlay, Microsoft's paid click share is up 44% and that spend is starting to look less laughable.
Why? Because search dominance is as much about performance as it is about perception. And getting people to think you have the best search engine is basically the same thing as having the best search engine. The trouble is that's easier said than done.
FriendFeed's real value for Facebook is in search
Facebook has been increasingly compared to Google of late, and the social network's acquisition of FriendFeed yesterday might make some large strides toward getting its functionality closer to that of the search giant. FriendFeed may not have the audience or cache that Twitter has right now, but it has something else that Facebook values: search functionality.
Twitter's popularity has escalated as FriendFeed has stagnated, but the company offers more than just executive programming talent to bring to the Facebook team. If Facebook expects to be the dominant player in the social media space (and it does), it's going to need to make itself an important aggregation tool. And FriendFeed can help with that.
Publicis Groupe pulls the trigger on Razorfish acquisition
As reported before, Microsoft has been looking to sell digital agency Razorfish, a business it acquired through its $6bn purchase of ad services holding company aQuantive in 2007.
Yesterday, it announced a deal: Publicis Groupe, the world's second largest media agency, will be buying Razorfish for $530m in cash and Publicis Groupe treasury shares.
Microsoft Bing jingler sticks it to Techcrunch's MG Siegler
The winner of the Microsoft Bing Jingle Challenge (or whatever it was called) yesterday had his song savaged by Techcrunch writer MG Siegler.
“’Catchy’ is one word for it,” wrote MG. “Another is awful.” I’m afraid I agree with Siegler here, apart from the catchy bit, but make of it what you will:
It turns out that the winning songwriter - one Jonathan Mann, who writes one song a day and uploads them to YouTube – isn’t one to take this kind of criticism lying down. He has replied to Siegler via the power of song!
Google takes to the highways in its fight against Microsoft Office
For a company that makes the bulk of its revenues from advertising, Google is particularly shy about advertising itself. But starting today, the search giant is launching an offline campaign gunning for Microsoft's office applications business.
Not only is Google going after Microsoft customers where they are, the company is embracing a variety of low tech methods to do so.
Microsoft to European Commission: we'll let consumers pick a browser
To appease the European Commission in its pending antitrust case over the tying of Internet Explorer and Windows, Microsoft initially planned to release a version of Windows 7 in Europe that would be browser-free. That would ensure that consumers had the ability to choose a browser freely.
But a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft reversed course and proposed an alternative solution: a "ballot screen" that would enable consumers in the EU to select their browser of choice.
Microsoft and comScore: the click of death for the click-through?
The click-through is arguably the most powerful metric on the internet. It is largely the criteria upon which many online ad campaigns are judged and a billion-dollar economy has been built upon it.
But is the click-through really all it's cracked up to be? Sure, it works well when you're doing direct response advertising. But what about brand advertising?
What support for the Microhoo deal says about Google
Not everyone is sure that the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft will work out the way Yahoo and Microsoft hope but by in large, advertisers and search marketers are excited about the deal.
While Google will still hold a dominant lead in the search market, Microhoo becomes a strong number two, something that should create more competition. As David Kenny of Publicis' VivaKi told AdAge, "Anything that creates a credible platform and more innovation in search is going to be good for consumers and, therefore, good for advertisers".
RIP Yahoo search: 1994-2009
When Google tried to boost Yahoo's search business last year with a revenue sharing deal, regulators and advertisers cried foul. But that deal had the potential to do something that this one will not: help Yahoo prop up its flailing search business.
Today Yahoo and Microsoft announced a search merger that will cede Yahoo's marketshare to Microsoft, making the software giant the defacto runner up to Google in the search category. But what will it mean for Yahoo? The Sunnyvale-based company will get a large chunk of their combined search revenues for the next few years, but for many it looks like this deal is the death knell for Yahoo search.
Microhoo: WWUD? (what will users do?)
So they finally did it. The months of will-they-or-won't-they dissolved into years before Microsoft and Yahoo finally forged a marriage, of sorts. Reams are being written about what the deal means for advertisers, for investors and for the companies themselves. Really, though, it all boils down to one question: what will users do?
Let's say they do create a search engine that's better than Google - way better than Google. Will it matter? Will users use it?
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
