Gareth Owen | Nov 17, 2010 | Comments

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important factors for success when running almost any online business these days. Having the ability to ensure your customers can go to a search engine and easily find your business’s website is absolutely invaluable in both B2C and B2B markets.

For many, the answer is to hire an in-house expert and ensure that their recommendations are followed. However, for many — especially in more competitive online industries — the risk and costs of employing the one expert or even a small team is outweighed by the reassurance of using an agency and benefiting from service level agreements, broader knowledge bases, and insight from other SEO campaigns in different markets.

So what are the key factors in choosing an SEO agency and why are they important? These are my top five tips.

1. Look for an agency to show examples of using different SEO techniques to bring results.

Every client will have different requirements in order to achieve great results. For some there will be major content requirements; for others the focus may be on improving their link profile.

2. Find an agency that will be able to work closely with your developers, content teams, and other agencies.

Your agency should be like an extension of your team. With SEO a range of elements will lead to success. Your agency needs to be able to work closely with tech teams, creatives, as well as potentially with your paid search, PR, display agencies, and more.

3. Don’t underestimate the value of sector knowledge, but also ensure you won’t get the same approach as taken for another client (see point 1).

An SEO agency that knows your market can be valuable for a number of reasons, including having an understanding of appropriate keyword strategies, competitor insights, and an idea of how to engage with relevant link partners. What’s important to remember, however, is that you’ll need an approach that isn’t exactly the same as everyone else in the market.

4. Try and avoid any agency that claims to have a ‘network’ of their own sites for link building.

The ability to affect your client’s link profile quickly and cost effectively can be of huge value. But if you’re looking for an agency and they believe that one of the biggest selling points they have is that they have their own network of sites they can call on for links, that is generally a bad sign.

There are numerous examples of sites that link out exclusively to clients of the same SEO agency — this isn’t something you really want as part of your link profile. It’s better to use a range of different techniques to build links, not just the one.

Also, a network can be used as a way to force you into using the agency. Leave them, and they kill your link profile and lower your rankings.

5. Look for an agency that is willing to be completely transparent in how they work.

If you can find an SEO agency that’s happy to show you exactly what they do in building links, in investigating indexing issues, in understanding competitor site profiles, etc., then you can be more confident in seeing the value that they’re adding, and be sure that there will never be any hidden issues or any use of black hat techniques.

So, those are my recommendations based on my experiences both client and agency side. There are literally hundreds of individual questions you could look to get an SEO agency to answer but these are the areas I would suggest any in-house team focuses on when looking to appoint an agency.

Gareth Owen, Head of Natural Search, Steak, began his career in SEO at ChoiceQuote Insurance based in Liverpool in 2004. Responsible for the full marketing function for insurance products in motorcycle, taxi, van and haulage, he oversaw sizeable increases in ROI from online marketing spend.

He then moved to The Search Works where, as European Account Director, he worked on a range of large client brands, pioneered studies into the measurable effects of TV advertising on search volumes, and generated over £1 million in revenue through integrated search offerings in 2009. While in this role he also successfully created an integrated PPC/SEO/Affiliate offering for the parent company.

As well as being responsible for the SEO offering at Steak, Gareth also sits on IAB and IPA Search Councils and has spoken at IAB, IMRG and Econsultancy conferences.

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5,000 People Drive Real-Life Mitsubishi Over the Web | ClickZ .content_width_fix{padding-bottom:0px;}

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Douglas Quenqua  |  November 23, 2010  |  0 comments

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Getting potential customers to test drive your car is half the battle in automotive advertising. But the odds of making even that happened looked pretty slim for Mitsubishi Motors as it launched its latest model, the Outlander Sport.

"Mitsubishi as a brand had fallen off the consideration set for all but 4 percent of all Americans, which is pretty bad," said William Gelner, executive creative director for 180 L.A., Mitsubishi's creative agency, "and our media spend was a fraction of all costs of what other auto manufacturers were spending."

So rather than try to lure the customers to the dealership, 180 decided to take the dealership to the customers. From November 1 through November 11th, Mitsubishi offered online test drives of the Outlander Sport.

Billed as the "Mitsubishi Live Drive," the program allowed consumers to operate a real-life Outlander from their home computers by using their keyboards. "This was not a simulation or a 'virtual' test drive," said Gelner. "You actually got to drive a real car" around a closed course.

The idea wasn't quite to replace a real-life test drive, but to convince people they should sign up for one. The agency was also hoping to make the link in consumers' minds between hi-tech innovation and the Outlander Sport, which comes with various iPhone and iPod integration features. Indeed, creating the Internet test drive required the work of renowned robotics engineer Dr. James Brighton and software engineer Simon Cave from B-Reel. B-Reel created the Live Drive site and handled all the production.

180 also created a series of Web videos to promote the test drives (and the car). The 60-second version of the video has so far attracted more than 27,000 views on YouTube.

More than 40,000 people ultimately registered for an online test drive, though only 5,000 actually got the chance to take one during the 11-day promotion. (Of those 5,000 people, 38 spent their entire test drive doing donuts, and 11 drove in reverse the whole time, said 180.) Although 35,000 registrants never got to take the actual test drive, Mitsubishi nonetheless captured their e-mail addresses and will be following up with CRM efforts.

Perhaps the most important metric though is that 25 percent of those who took a test drive clicked the "find a dealer" button to sign up for a real test drive, "which was the real goal," said Gelner.

Whether the campaign results in more Mitsubishi sales remains to be seen, but it did break one record so far: the longest distance ever driven by a remote-control car, 91 miles. The Guinness Book of World Record confirmed the record on November 19th.

Update and correction: Story has been updated to note B-Reel's involvement. Also, an earlier version misidentified Simon Cave as Simon Archer.

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Douglas Quenqua is a journalist based in Brooklyn, NY who writes about culture and technology. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, The New York Observer, and Fortune.

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Alex Cohen | Nov 24, 2010 | Comments

There’s a certain inertia to all marketing projects. By the time you finish launching something, the last thing you want to do is to keep dwelling on it weeks later.

That’s true in paid search as well. Campaigns and ad groups can fall into neglect under the strain of too much to do in too little time.

Unfortunately, staying competitive in paid search requires constant reinvention. Competition constantly evolves and the tools we have to compete get tweaked, dumped, or changed by the engines all the time. If you aren’t adjusting, you can bet your competitors are.

During the Q&A in the Holiday Retail Tactics session at SES Chicago, someone asked about the best way to make their paid search campaigns more profitable when they’re not the lowest price competitor.

We talked about a lot of options, but I was surprised they didn’t know about Product Extensions of Sitelinks — two of the new AdWords ad formats. Not everyone reads industry news on a daily basis.

It’s time to recap all of the many ways paid search has changed this year and use them to spruce your campaigns up for the holiday season. Follow this 10 day plan and you’ll be well on your way to the most profitable holiday season (and post-season) yet.

Day 1: Implement Sitelinks Day 2: Add Product Extensions Day 3: Set up Remarketing (a.k.a. retargeting) Day 4: Target Display Ads Above the Fold Day 5: Migrate to Modified Broad Match Day 6: Test Click to Call Day 7: Target Image Ads on Google Image Search Day 8: Add Seller Ratings (Closed Beta) Day 9: Launch Product Listing Ads (Closed Beta) Day 10: Include Video Extensions

Day 1: Implement Sitelinks

What it is: Traditionally, text ads only had one link: the title of the ad. Sitelinks are up to four additional links that appear below your ad, similar to the links you may see in the organic listing when you search your brand name. They can be in a one line or two line format.

Ad Sitelinks only appear for ads in the preferred position — those ads that appear above the organic search results. Even then, there is an undisclosed relevance and quality score minimum to trigger sitelinks.

What it looks like:

Why it matters: You can steal more screen real estate, pushing down other paid competitors and (potentially unfavorable) organic results. Google states that “On average, advertisers who use Ad Sitelinks have seen their ad clickthrough rates improve by 30%.” Feedback from other advertisers I’ve spoken with has been positive as well.

It’s also a potential useful tool to boost profitability for competitive keywords. If you link to higher margin product or category pages, you might be able to improve revenue and net profit even if you’ve exhausted your cost savings tactics.

How to implement it: Set up Ad Sitelinks in your Campaign Settings tab. It will appear as “Show additional links to my site” under the “Ad extensions” section. Who can use it: All advertisers. More Information:

Day 2: Add Product Extensions

What it is: Product Extensions are a plus box feature you can append to your text ads. A plus box is the little gray plus sign that allows searchers to expand your ad to see more information. In this case, searchers will see up to six product pictures, names (hyperlinked), and prices. What it looks like:

Why it matters: Relevance. If someone is search for a specific product, showing them that product and shortcutting the number of steps from add to product page is likely to increase conversions. As with sitelinks, you can also own more of the search engine results page (SERP) real estate.

Google also reported higher click-through rate (CTR), “For example, Zeta interactive, who manages advertising for SonyStyle.com, reported seeing over a 10 percent increase in CTR for their ads with product extensions.”

How to implement it: First, you have to have a Google Merchant Center account. After you set that up, you have to link your Google Merchant Center and AdWords accounts. This help article outlines the steps.

In AdWords, you have to go to the campaign settings tab. Look for the he “Ad extensions” heading and select the option to “Use product images and information from my Google Merchant Center account.”

There are a lot of granular controls you can use to force Google to show certain products for certain search queries and to enhance analytics data. “Pimping Out Product Extension Ads” offers a thorough and easy to follow guide.

Who can use it: Everyone in the U.S.; limited beta elsewhere. More information:

Day 3: Set up Remarketing (a.k.a. Retargeting)

What it is: Remarketing allows you to target display ads on Google’s Display Network only to people who have visited your website. What it looks like: You can use any display ad format accepted on Google’s Display Network. Here’s a sample remarketing banner:

Why it matters: Searchers who have already visited your site, viewed products, or even added them to their cart but not yet purchased are the lowest hanging fruit. They’re brand aware, interested, and likely in the market. It’s the highest possible intent audience that you can reach with display ads.

Retargeting can boost your overall results and help push impulse purchasers over the edge or enable you to reach prospects who take more time to evaluate before committing. If you aren’t doing display today, this can be the easiest and most profitable way to get started.

How to implement it: Choose or create a campaign that is set to show ads on the Display Network (remember, you want to separate targeting for your campaigns to either the search network or the display network, but not both together).

Make sure the Audiences tab is enabled and that you have creative relevant to the audience you’re targeting.

On the audiences tab, you can create lists, essentially people who visited certain pages on your site. In order for Google to know whether people visited a certain landing page, for example, you’ll have to tag the pages that correspond to the list with a small amount of code.

Once you define your lists, you can create custom combinations (e.g., people who added an item to the cart but didn’t visit the order thank you page). You still set all of the normal settings you define for a campaign: bids, etc.

This remarketing set up guide video will walk you through the basics.

Who can use it: All advertisers More information:

“A 10 Day Plan to Overhaul Your PPC Campaigns, Part 2″ will look at targeting display ads above the fold, migrating to modified broad match, and testing click-to-call. So check back next month!

Alex Cohen is an accomplished online marketer, blogger, and presenter. He has been a featured speaker at Princeton University’s Global Entrepreneurship Week, Villanova University, Wakeforest University and Search Marketing Expo.

Alex is the Senior Marketing Manager at ClickEquations, a paid search platform for large advertisers and agencies. In addition to contributing to Search Engine Watch, Alex writes Digital Alex, a blog about marketing optimization, and contributes to other search marketing and Web analytics sites.

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Peter van der Graaf | Nov 4, 2010 | Comments

Google is getting increasingly arrogant and as people gradually grow accustomed to each new level of irritation, Google’s “creepy line” shifts.

But is there a maximum tolerance? Is this a case of decreasing quality or is it just unfair (and to whom)?

This article describes 10 annoying aspects of Google.

1. Too Much Steering of Visitors

Whenever functionality and layout of the Google result pages change, it increases the focus on preferred navigation. In most cases this limits choice and steers towards Google’s best interest.

For example, Google Suggest limits choice and Google Instant makes sure the first suggestion is already shown. If you’re looking for [nokia], you must be looking for the official brand and its “impartial” information, right?

If you want to buy a Nokia, you probably only want Google’s Shopping results or Google AdWords. What’s next? No other choice but http://www.google.com/phone/?

2. Your Content, Their Platform

Google is continuously adding task specific platforms to its collective. These platforms take over the roles of existing websites and replace their ranking in Google Web Search.

Normal search results are packed with Google products. Some initial research I’ve read indicates that visitors are less likely to leave Google property. News, business listings, video, shopping, and reviews are all viewed from Google, and only if a transaction is the logical next step, do they leave.

With functionality like Google Checkout, even that remains to be seen for the near future. Only websites that fully embrace Google and share all their content the way Google likes it can benefit from these developments.

3. No Openness

For many types of data we have become heavily dependent on Google. Every time they initiate an act of more openness toward webmasters, they close it down or dramatically reduce its accuracy soon after.

Things like Google Trends, the AdWords Keyword Tool, PageRank, Webmaster Central, API functionality, and interesting search operators for webmasters have all been made worthless after we grew accustomed to using them.

The dependency on other Google products is increasing and people keep deluding themselves that Google will in no way use or abuse everything it knows about you.

Keep feeding Google with information from Gmail, Google Analytics, Google Chrome, Google Web Search, Google AdSense, and all those other options and it will know you better than you know yourself. It’s just a case of gradually increasing your acceptance before many forms of extremely personal advertisement start to reach you.

4. Privacy Concerns

Local law only determines the ways in which online platforms may collect data from its visitors. In most cases it doesn’t say what data may be stored and how that data may be used.

Google has created so many ways to collect too much data about you. If it would connect the dots, it could have full details on your online behavior.

Because Google falls under U.S. law, the government can demand specifics. Even misdemeanors and tax evasion could easily be proven with their data. Is it in the governments interest to protect our privacy?

Some conspiracy theorists even came up with the notion that Google has paid Firefox to become unstable, which in turn would get more people to try Chrome. Thus far I don’t believe such accusations, but if anyone has the power to bribe, mask opinions, elude detection, and deceive the masses, it would be Google. It is time someone creates a movie around this topic.

5. Weird Evaluation of Some Ranking Factors

As a search engine optimization (SEO) consultant, website owner, and web surfer, I find it illogical how important Google finds some ranking factors. It happens far too often that I see irrelevant, unimportant websites high in a top 10, just because they have an exact match domain name. Or their domain happens to have a lot of generic authority and ranks for everything they accidentally entered in their text.

As I do a lot of tests on the weight distribution of ranking factors, I have seen illogical factors come and go. The ones that stay, all come down to the following: early Internet entrepreneurs are the only ones benefiting.

If you got your domain names early enough, if you’ve had links to you for ages (since Google collects time information), and if you’re well connected with other Internet dinosaurs, you can rank for anything. New sites need to get the favor from existing authoritative sites or make up for that with a multitude of links compared to others.

6. Unnatural Behavior?

Google seems to determine the extent to which something is unnatural on averages.

If every website on a specific topic would grow 1,000 links a day, that would become the standard. If everybody buys links or gets many links from their own network of sites, it is instantly condoned. But does “if everybody does it, it can’t be bad” make it any less spammy?

To be a player on competitive search terms in Germany I have to buy links just like everyone else. This is just one example of how the masses dictate the required strategy.

7. Casualties of War

In the unending war between SEO spammers and Google, there are a lot of accidental kills. Google constantly shifts the weight of ranking factors and adds additional signs for unnatural behavior.

In most cases, the abusers are flexible and find other weaknesses to exploit. Websites with factors that are mistaken for spam are impacted much harder.

The good thing is that these people then come to SEO experts like me. Basically, it comes down to “follow Google’s guidelines to the letter or risk the chance of penalties.”

8. Manual Intervention

Where the Google algorithm doesn’t give a clear ruling on potentially spammy SEO activities, Google could use its search quality team. This team looks for characteristics with which they can teach the algorithm to detect future occurrences of the spam tactic. It also looks for the people behind the website and sites with similar characteristics.

The SEO industry has been reporting an increasing amount of manual interventions and websites mistakenly effected by the spammy activity of others. When quality control becomes production work, accidents are just waiting to happen. Especially when Google has a bias against certain types of websites, manual intervention can prevent these sites from hiding their true identity.

9. Specific Business Types Rooted Out

Many characteristics can be used to determine the type of website. Especially when a type of website might have conflicting interests with Google we see them less and less in the SERP top 10.

If you once typed [air conditioning columbus ohio] it was the realm of business listing and directory websites; [Versace] showed only online shops and their affiliates; and [jackass] showed popular video platforms. Is this in the user’s best interest?

10. And it Keeps Getting Worse

It isn’t so bad for Google to see how far it can go in playing a monopolistic dictator. It’s much more frightening to see how much influence people allow them to have.

All under the misconception that they have a choice. Maybe I shouldn’t hate Google, because it might just be envy.

Final Thoughts

Should we all abandon Google? No, not just yet!

Are there alternatives? For an SEO, a monopolist makes life easier.

Should we make Google listen to us? Their users should make them because quality and searcher experience are at stake.

How do we dampen their influence? Change your focus: Google for initial website discovery is OK, but create returning visitors who show personal involvement. The added value of content and interaction that really make your site valuable should be kept from Google!

Peter van der Graaf has been active in search engine marketing for over ten years. Having worked on hundreds of link building projects for clients across the world, he’s able to share some great insights. He’s currently active in training SEO firms and in-house SEM teams in the art of link building. For clients in heavily competed industries he can always free up some time to devise great new strategies.

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Erik Qualman  |  November 24, 2010  |  0 comments

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We often exult the greatness of social media, but in our euphoria we sometimes overlook the dark side of social media. I thought it would be helpful to put together a quick pros and cons list so that if you are engaging with social media for your company that you can go in with eyes wide open.

Pros:

Low hard costs compared to traditional marketing like print, television, outdoor, etc.Quick, honest, and detailed feedback from the customer. Allows for deeper engagements with customers. Similar to great brand marketing and customer service, the benefits of doing social media right can last for years. Every customer and employee is a potential media outlet: social media is word of mouth on digital steroids. In the past, companies that had the most money to spend on marketing often won, today it's the company that produces great products and experiences for their customers. Social media takes time and effort. Many companies aren't willing to do this, hence those companies that put forth the extra effort will stand out. If you are a progressive company you can use these tools to effectively recruit new talent.

Cons:

Often, many benefits of social media are seen in the months to come rather than immediately. It shouldn't be viewed like Google AdWords, which has a quick return. It should be viewed more like brand marketing and good customer service, which pays off in the future. Tools can quickly change; one day it is MySpace, Orkut, Friendster, and Bebo; the next day it's Facebook and Mixi. There are a lot of hidden soft costs: it takes time to develop relationships with customers. In the offline world, developing relationships takes time and effort – the same holds true within social media. May reduce the amount of face-to-face communication we have with one another, diminishing on interpersonal communication skills.If the customer feels they haven't been treated appropriately, they have powerful tools at their disposal (YouTube, Twitter, etc.) to express their side of the story and negatively impact a brand reputation.Often we turn over our brand ownership to employees and customers and they can take us places we don't want to go.

Just like anything, there are some cons to social media. However, advantages outweigh the disadvantages and even if they didn't, we don't have a choice on whether we do social media. The question is how well we do it. The worst thing to do, is to do nothing.

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ShareThis COMMENTSCommenting policy0 Reactions ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Erik Qualman is the author of "Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business." Socialnomics made Amazon's No. 1 Best Selling List only after three weeks of publication & is consistently in the Top 100 Best Selling Business Books List. Qualman is a frequently requested International speaker of the Fortune 500 and has been highlighted in numerous media outlets including: BusinessWeek, The New York Times, CNET, San Francisco Chronicle, Mashable, USA Today, Forbes, CBS Nightly News, and The Huffington Post. He has been fortunate to share the stage with Ford CEO Alan Mulally, Walmart CEO Lee Scott, Portugal Prime Minister Jose Socrates, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, actress Julie Andrews, and former Vice President Al Gore.

For the past 16 years Qualman has helped grow the online marketing and ebusiness capabilities of many companies including Education First, Cadillac, EarthLink, Yahoo, Travelzoo, and AT&T. He is also the owner of the social media blog socialnomics.com. Qualman holds a BA from Michigan State University and an MBA from The University of Texas. He is currently the global vice president of the world's largest private education company [EF Education]. He was Academic All-Big Ten in basketball at Michigan State University and still finds time to follow his beloved Spartans while living in Boston with his wife.

RELATED READING 4 Common Social Media Questions Answered October 13, 2010 Mobile Social Marketing: BBF 4evr September 22, 2010 Search Marketing and Social Media: The Perfect Couple, But... September 20, 2010 Social Media: What a Difference a Year Makes May 19, 2010 The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing No Longer Apply, Part 2 March 4, 2010 Community activity stream Most read Tag cloud .echo-stream-container {width:288px;padding:0 4px 4px 4px;font-size:1.1em;}.echo-stream-body {margin-top:-20px} .echo-item-container {border-bottom:1px dotted #a9a9a9;padding:8px 0 5px 0; } .echo-primaryBackgroundColor {background-color:#f5f5f5;margin-top:-26px;border:0 } .echo-secondaryBackgroundColor {background-color:#F4F4F4;} .echo-trinaryBackgroundColor {background-color:#eceff5;} .echo-item-wrapper {margin-top:-3px} .echo-secondaryColor {color:#aaaaaa;} .echo-stream-container a, .echo-linkColor {color:#0077cf;} .echo-linkColor {font-size:1.0em;color:#3a3a3a;font-weight:normal} .echo-item-re a {color:#0077cf;line-height:1.4em} .echo-linkFont, .echo-stream-container a, .echo-stream-container a:hover {text-decoration:none;} .echo-item-from a {color:#767676;text-decoration:none;} .echo-item-from a:hover {color:#767676;text-decoration:none;} .popoutpopup{position:relative;} a.popoutpopup:hover{text-decoration:none;} .popoutpopup span {position:absolute;width:232px;padding:4px 6px;height:auto;line-height:1.3em;left:-1000px;visibility:hidden;background:#f7941d;font-size:1.2em;text-decoration:none;border:1px solid #d3d3d3;color:#ffffff}.popoutpopup:hover span{visibility:visible;top:20px;left:50px}.echo-item-sourceIcon {display:none!important} .jsk-HeaderWrapper {display:none!important} .jsk-LinkFont, .jsk-ThreadWrapper a, .jsk-ThreadWrapper a:hover {text-decoration:none!important;color:#0077cf!important}.jsk-SecondaryFontColor {color:#aaaaaa!important;}

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Photo: Donnie Reid/Institute of Nautical Archaeology

In 1901, the stern-wheeler A. J. Goddard was caught in a storm on Lake Laberge in Canada’s Yukon Territory and sank. It lay lost in those frigid depths until underwater archaeologists located it in 2008. The Goddard was a significant find—the cold, oxygen-starved environment meant textiles and even paper might be intact, a valuable record of the Klondike Gold Rush. Standard procedure for mapping such a wreck used to involve fiberglass tape and sketches on Mylar, a tedious process fraught with error—highly accurate surveys could take years.

This past June, however, experts mapped the Goddard in hours. They did it with the BlueView BV5000, a football-sized sonar scanner designed for underwater military operations and petroleum exploration. Its rotating head captures images as millions of dots in a “point cloud” that can be assembled into a precise 3-D model.

For the Goddard survey, researchers with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology moved the scanner around the hull and then lowered it through a hatch to map the interior. In an afternoon, the team created a hi-res digital Goddard, “right down to the mud on the sides,” INA president Jim Delgado says. For underwater archaeologists, he adds, “it’s an exponential leap—from the Wright brothers to the SST.”

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Twenty years ago this month, Tim Berners-Lee published his proposal for the World Wide Web. Today, the web is an explosion of pages and apps teeming with videos, photos and interactive content. These powerful new web experiences—such as “The Wilderness Downtown,” our HTML5 collaboration with the band Arcade Fire—are possible thanks to cutting-edge web technologies that bring all this content to life in the modern browser.

But how do browsers and the web actually work? What is HTML5—or HTML, for that matter? What do terms like “cookies” or “cloud computing” even mean? More practically, how can we keep ourselves safe from security threats like viruses when we’re online?

To help answer these questions, we collaborated with the wonderful illustrator Christoph Niemann to publish an online guidebook called “20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web.” This handy guide is for those of us who’d like to better understand the technologies we use every day.

“20 Things” is written by the Chrome team, and continues our tradition of finding new ways to help explain complex but fascinating ideas about technology. Many of the examples used to illustrate the features of the browser refer back to Chrome.

We built “20 Things” in HTML5 so that we could incorporate features that hearken back to what we love about books—feeling the heft of a book’s cover, flipping a page or even reading under the covers with a flashlight. In fact, once you’ve loaded “20 Things” in the browser, you can disconnect your laptop and continue reading, since this guidebook works offline. As such, this illustrated guidebook is best experienced in Chrome or any up-to-date, HTML5-compliant modern browser.

For things you’ve always wanted to know about the web and browsers but may have been afraid to ask, read on at www.20thingsilearned.com (or, you can use the handy shortened URL at goo.gl/20things). If you find “20 Things” informative, don’t forget to share it with your friends and family!

Posted by Min Li Chan, Product Marketing Manager, Google Chrome

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Video is big just about any way you look at it. Over 4 billion people have a TV set and the average American is in front of it for over five hours a day. Video is expected to generate between $425 billion to $450 billion including ad supported, box office, pay per view, and subscription revenues, making it by far the largest media market on the planet, according to PWC media research.

It’s also a medium that’s in flux. In my position at YouTube, I’ve observed this market over the last few years, and have taken note of the ways in which it is fundamentally changing.

Hyper-Fragmentation: This Is Not a New Story

Venture back in your memory to 1987. The number one show on TV was The Cosby Show. Everyone you knew watched it every week. In fact, it got a 35-point Nielsen rating and 50-plus percent household share.

Jump ahead to 2010: cable TV is ubiquitous, and the number one show on TV is American Idol. Everyone watches American Idol, right? Actually, American Idol had about one-third the audience of Cosby, even including DVR viewers, according to McNeil, Alex McNeil’s “Total Television” and Nielsen Data. Where did those viewers go? It turns out that they are still watching TV, they are just watching cable. Our data shows that over 50 percent of TV viewership is occurring on cable networks that have less than 1 percent share.

This transition was about a growing shelf – as the number of choices offered to consumers grew, the audiences naturally fragmented into their areas of interests. Some people turned their attention to the delicious creations on the Food Network, while others headed over to watch memorable sports moments on ESPN Classic.

Online video has all of a sudden created an infinite shelf for content, and the resultant fragmentation has been enormous. Every minute, more than 35 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube. And numerous other sites are hosting and developing online video. Now, if you’re a Food Network junkie, not only can you watch a dedicated network all about food, but you can go straight to your niche and spend that time watching just videos about vegetarian cooking while some other viewer may choose to spend their time just focused on how to select and serve cheese. If travel is more your speed, you’ve got online video options that run the gamut from TravelChannel.com, Travelistic, and ZoomandGo to National Geographic and Compulsive Traveler.tv.

It’s hyper-fragmentation, but in many ways, it’s just a continuation of a trend we’ve seen in video for the past couple decades.

Great Content Can Come From Anywhere

So, online video is just an extension of the video fragmentation story. As TV fragmented from three commercial networks to hundreds, all sorts of new content emerged. Online video is fragmenting video at many times the order of magnitude, and thus the variety of content creators is similarly changing.

A couple of years ago, Sal Khan’s cousin in Louisiana asked him for some math tutoring over the Web. But they couldn’t find an easy time to get on Web cams for tutoring sessions, so Sal decided to just record his lessons and send them to her on YouTube. But it wasn’t just his little cousin who was watching; millions of other viewers found his lessons to be useful and so they tuned in as well. So he made some more educational videos. Before he knew it, he had amassed million of views. We made him a partner and started showing ads on his videos and sharing the revenue with him.

Over a year ago, advertising was generating enough revenue for him, that he decided to quit his lucrative job at a hedge fund and focus on Khan Academy full time. We host videos from many educators – including taped lectures from universities like MIT and Stanford. But Sal’s videos have been viewed almost 30 million times, making him the biggest single educator on our site.

Advertisers Can Create Content That Users Love

Fragmentation and online video has changed everything for content creators. It also changes everything for advertising. On our site, some ads have gotten over 10 million views. Think about that. For years, marketers have tried to build ads and force viewers to watch them by bundling them with content. But viewers choose to watch these great ads instead of content. For some of my favorites, check out the Evian “Roller Babies” and Dove “Evolution.”

Our moment of insight came in 2009 when we launched Promoted Videos. Just like AdWords, you bid for placement in our site’s search results. What surprised us was how much people were bidding. The auctions regularly clear at 10 to 40 times the typical cost-per-view of ads on network TV. Initially baffled, we found our answer soon – the opted-in viewer is really paying attention, so the advertiser doesn’t need to buy additional frequency.

Based on these results, we will give advertisers the option to only pay for engaged views on a cost-per-view basis through what we’re calling our TrueView Video Ads. Under one format, called InSlate, viewers can choose to watch one of several available ads ahead of long-form content. Another format, called InStream, permits a user to skip the ad if they’re not interested. In both cases, advertisers bid on a cost-per-view basis, and only pay when a user chooses to watch their ads.

TrueView InSlate:

True View InStream:

This is the way the industry is moving. Most recently, Vivaki’s Pool initiative acknowledged the fact that advertisers can create content that users love by choosing the ASq format as the industry standard. ASq gives users a choice in the type of ad experience they want to see, and their research validates our ad evolution towards opted-in engaged views. We’ll be supporting ASq campaigns through TrueView, joining many other video networks that have backed up The Pool’s findings.

These ad formats are just two examples, but the broader concept is simple. For years, TV has produced higher monetization by showing viewers more ads per hour. We believe that online video can help reverse this trend – we will eventually show users fewer ads, but get much more advertiser impact out of each ad view, and deliver even higher monetization to content creators.

There Is No Online Video, Just Video

The days of the battle between online video and TV are coming to a close. Today, viewers are stuck in two separate worlds – TV, where I have access to all of my favorite shows, live sports, and movies – and the Web, where I can access my favorite sites and Web videos from my PC or mobile device.

This division is quickly fading. We can watch most TV programs across a range of devices now. And in the living room, we can watch and share our favorite “Web” videos on the best, brightest screen in the house.

This is why we launched Google TV, to bring together these two worlds into one seamless entertainment experience. We envision a future where the viewer won’t care whether there video is delivered to their TV set over an IP cable or a satellite feed – it will all feel like video to the viewer.

The video industry has exploded through many transitions already and it is about to go through its largest yet. We think that this will be great for both the industry and for the viewer. Fragmentation will produce new opportunities for content producers, interactivity will allow for great advertisers to compete for attention with content, and convergence of video sources will ultimately lead to a better experience for viewers. And that’s the future we’re working toward.

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The 2010 Google Faculty Summit was held Thursday and Friday, November 18-19 in Shanghai, part of our ongoing support for education in China. Senior Googlers from China and Mountain View, California gathered to explore hot topics at the cutting-edge of technology research with more than 65 experts and professors from around 30 universities and institutes including Tsinghua University, Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Other topics included how to deepen collaboration between Google and China universities in areas of joint research, curriculum development and cultivation of talents.

This year’s theme was “Fostering Understanding and Strengthening Cooperation” and the meeting served as a platform for academia and industry to explore ways of teaming up with Google on university-business cooperation and technology research. The Summit, which spanned a day and a half, was also Google China’s largest education event to date.

Our discussions on Thursday focused on deep discussion about two of Google China’s most important sectors, mobile computing and e-commerce, while the morning of Friday focused on cooperation in course development. The Summit examined course development for many of today’s hottest topics, including cloud computing, Android application development and web technology, thereby strengthening the cultivation of talent in these sectors. In addition, the Summit included several topic-specific discussion groups that allowed experts and professors from institutions of higher education to meet with Google staff and discuss relevant topics and cooperation with the hope of expanding upon currently existing areas of cooperation. We’ve posted more details on the Summit here in Simplified Chinese.

Cooperation between Google and Chinese universities and institutions of higher education began in 2005 with course development and gradually grew to include projects that supported Chinese universities to cultivate innovative professionals that meet industry needs. Projects currently underway include course development, teacher training, scholarship programs, research grants for doctoral students, donations of equipment, joint research, innovative student projects, campus lectures and educational summits. We’ve established 12 research projects with universities in Mainland China including Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University and Shanghai Jiaotong University, as well as the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Hong Kong Chinese University. These projects focus on many areas of study, including mobile computing, machine learning, data mining, multimedia searches and natural language processing. Visit the University Relations website to learn more about our cooperation with universities. Moving forward, we’ll will continue to support our partner universities to deepen cooperation and expand areas of focus.

Posted by Maggie Johnson, Director of Education and University Relations

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