Red Door Interactive: On the Internet: March 2007

Online Reputation Management Basics by Lee Odden

A good how-to on monitoring your external Web presence. These are the basics and a fabulous way to "conduct market research" in real-time. This is a highly recommended activity for anyone who feels that they have a brand to protect.

Posted by Reid

11:10 AM 1 comments

Does Multitasking Work?

We all think it does. But research says we may be reacting slower and making mistakes when we divide our attention.

Everyone juggles phone calls, email, IM and the web to get more done, right? But are we really one step ahead? Maybe it’s more like “the faster we go, the behinder we get.”

Several research studies show that multitasking has its limits. Neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors suggest that it’s wise to limit your multitasking behavior if you’re working in an office, studying or driving a car.

Here’s what the results of these studies suggest.

1) When working, check email messages only once per hour to avoid interruptions on current tasks. This allows you to manage technology rather than constantly yielding to its incessant call.

2) While studying, listening to peaceful background music can improve concentration, but avoid songs with lyrics and other distractions like IM, TV, etc., which can hamper performance.

3)Don’t drive while talking on your cell phone, even with a hands-free headset.

“Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes,” said David E. Meyer, a cognitive scientist and director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan. “Disruptions and interruptions are a bad deal from the standpoint of our ability to process information.”

René Marois, a neuroscientist and director of the Human Information Processing Laboratory at Vanderbilt University also conducted research on multitasking and agrees with Dr. Meyer. The human brain has a hundred billion neurons and hundreds of trillions of synaptic connections, making it a cognitive powerhouse in many ways. “But a core limitation is an inability to concentrate on two things at once,” said Dr. Marois.

For the details on how the above studies were conducted as well as other research from the Institute for the Future of the Mind at Oxford University and a study on Microsoft employees from the University of Illinois, read this article from the New York Times.

Posted by Paul J. Bruemmer

9:51 AM 0 comments

A Web Analytics Breakthrough (That May Never Be Used)

"Google Browser Sync for Firefox is an extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions. "

Essentially what this means is whether your at home, work , or elsewhere, if you have firefox and this plugin installed the anlaytics tools will count you as a single user. This allows unique visitors to be tracked even more accurately.

The article then goes into why this tool may never be utilized.

Posted by TCarrillo

9:59 AM 0 comments

What do the Presidential Candidates use for Analytics?

Hillary Clinton uses Google Analytics

John Edwards uses Google Analytics

Barack Obama uses Google Analytics

Rudy Giuliani uses Google Analytics

Mitt Romney uses Omniture

John McCain uses either Revenue Science.

I wonder what kind of KPI's they're crunching?

Posted by TCarrillo

3:53 PM 0 comments

China Web 2.0: Joe Chen Wants it All

The CEO of Beijing's Oak Pacific Interactive says he's ready to rumble with Rupert Murdoch's MySpace for dominance of mainland social networking sites.

China's personal computer market is growing at a 21% annualized rate, vs. just 2.6% in the U.S., and the mainland market is on track to be the world's biggest by early next decade. Talk of rising computer sales "is like music to us," he crows. China should also eclipse the U.S. in terms of online users (there are roughly 140 million now) during the same time frame.

Posted by TCarrillo

9:20 AM 0 comments

Cracking Google's 'secret sauce' algorithm

"Rand Fishkin knows how valuable it is for a Web site to rank high in a Google search. But even this president of a search engine optimization firm was blown away by a proposal he received at a search engine optimization conference in London last month, where he was a panelist."

"The topic -- Can a poker Web site rank high on a Google search using purely white hat tactics -- meaning no spamming, cloaking, link farms or other frowned-upon "black hat" practices. Fishkin answered yes, provided the site also added other marketing techniques and attracted some media attention."

"The rest of the panel scoffed. "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight," one chided. After all, this is the cutthroat online gambling sector."

"But one poker Web site owner was intrigued, and he later approached Fishkin. "He said, 'If you can get us a search ranking in the top five for online poker or gambling [using white hat methods], we'll buy that site from you for $10 million,'" recalls Fishkin, president and CEO of SEOmoz in Seattle. Intrigued but skeptical, Fishkin consulted other gambling site owners at the conference. "They said, 'If it really does rank there, we might be interested in paying you $10 million more.'"

"Turns out, a single online gambling customer brings in at least $1,000 in revenue. With a recent Google search of "Texas Holdem Poker" yielding 1.64 million results, it's easy to see why site owners would pay millions to crack the code for Google's PageRank algorithm -- the elusive Holy Grail of online marketing."

Posted by TCarrillo

9:13 AM 0 comments

Posted by TCarrillo

11:06 AM 0 comments

'Measured' Media Lose in Spending Cuts

"While some of the decline may reflect overall cutbacks in ad spending by big marketers, it likely signals that big companies such as Procter & Gamble are reallocating some of their ad budgets to new Internet ad venues such as paid-search advertising, social networking and online video."

Posted by TCarrillo

10:14 AM 0 comments

Piper Jaffray Maps Out Where the Search Industry is Headed

"Search is the second most commonly used application on the Web with 550 million searches daily in the United States, and search marketing is a $15.8 billion global industry growing to $44.5 billion over the next five years. Piper Jaffray believes the five key trends in the search industry are: 1) Search is the new portal; 2) Search is becoming a branding tool; 3) Google's dominance is increasing; 4) Local search remains a looming opportunity; and 5) New search technologies are likely to expand the field."

Posted by TCarrillo

4:26 PM 0 comments

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