Ads In A Quality Score World

More and more, ranking well in paid search listings is less about how much you pay and more about the "quality" of your ad campaign. But what goes into making up your quality score? In this panel, a closer look at quality factors and tips on increasing the perceived relevancy of your campaigns.


Moderator:




Speakers:




Q&A Speakers:




Gord Hotchkiss



  • Quality scoring is becoming more and more of a reality

  • Quality scoring is "Win, Win, Win


Joshua Stylman



  • Quality score is a way that search engines ranks search based on various relevancy ranking

  • A bit of history, Goto.com "ebay for keywords" revolutionized search marketing

  • 2005- google began to take more into consideration, landing page etc.

  • Search represents a conversation between a marketer and a user

  • Quality Score, Better User experience

  • Engines define "quality" , is this a good thing?

  • Changes affect quality score- Testing is penalized


  • Impact of Panama on Branded Terms

    • Companies buying their own brands have seen a drop in CPC

    • Unonwed brands (macys etc.) are being penalized




Andrew Goodman



  • Quality elements in paid search bidding: a third-generation auction

  • Version 1, static, CPM

  • Adwords 2.0 Max bid X CTR

  • QS and Keyword Status, Predictive or Historical CTR

  • Other relevancy factors- keyword, ad, landing pages

  • Certain keywords potentially lend themselves to low quality scores

  • QS has helping in getting rid of Amazon and ebay bidding on everything

  • Garbitrage, nearbitrage


Jonathan Mendez



  • Improving the quality of the adds is making the engines more money

  • Ignore the score

  • Ads are the bridge of relevance

  • Multivariate test to find the best optimal ad

  • Posits the description in line one is more important that the title

  • Bridging the moment of recognition with reinforcement

  • Message to the needs of users, not yours


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Video Search Optimization

Producing video content? There are video search engines that specialize in gathering up your video and making it available to searchers seeking such content. This session looks at how to make your video more visible in these specialized services.


Moderator:




  • Chris Sherman, Conference Programming Director, SES events series



Speakers:






  • More and more focus on video search this year, exponentially moreseo then years past

  • Video search is still really poor as it still relies largely on metadata



Sherwood Stranieri



  • Buzz and viral video are a large  part of the conversation today

  • Volume of audience well into "television territory"

  • How does this all translate to search?

  • Secondary conduits create a new life for video- people begin to write about the video

  • Post and links become an asset, residual value=traffic+ink reputation=search benefit

  • How do you drive lasting value?

  • Teaser Strategy driving to homebase

  • It is not enough to just be famous on You Tube


  • Make sure to consider the effects of building an all in one aggregate player

    • If it is flash, engines cannot get in and crawl all of the video



  • "Scarlett Johannson" on Google retrieves a a video on page one


Eric Papczun



  • 7 billion videos served a month

  • 72% watched news online

  • 76% help drive the viral chain

  • More and more people searching for video, beginning to rival audio

  • Lack of simple consistent taxonomy for producers

  • Search way to dependent on text around the video itself

  • Employ one video to url approach

  • Used "Kramer" debacle" as an example

  • Use plenty of HTML around video

  • Employ Video Site Maps

  • Use of the word video over and over again (within reason)

  • File tagging, scene tagging, comments on video are good new strategies

  • Scene tags on Click TV...tagging segments of the video

  • In format Metadata

  • Keep Video Files in one directory

  • MRSS Feed

  • Crosslink to Videos using Keywords in anchor text


Gregory Markel



  • Why is it so important? It's free

  • More guys search for video than females

  • more people search for video than news love and religion

  • viral social community addition to most video sites


  • 3 main submission types

    • metadata or crawled video data

    • Upload video search engines- Most important keywords at the front of sentences

    • RSS Based/Media RSS- Keyword infused keywords in titles and descriptions



  • Use a test based reinforcement on the first frame of the video

  • Use the last frame as a call to action

  • Check Out SEOWIKI  www.seowiki.com/blinx


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Podcamp, You Came and Went Like A Shooting Star

What a great weekend!

I have to admit that had the conference been cancelled, the experience of helping organize the event would have still been worthwhile. The show did however go on and while I only attended three sessions (which includes my own, I was running around helping much of the day) I feel that I came away with a real sense of community, new friends and a bunch of knowledge. I wish I had time to do a better recap of the event alas, I am on to my next project, Virtualive.tv as well as a month of conferences and speaking engagements. Also, my new article in iMediaconnection is slated to come out tomorrow so keep your eyes our for that.


Here are just a couple of highlights:


CNET


Eric Skiff


BUY SOME SHIRTS


Watch The Videos


Hear The Audio


Lynette Radio


Greg Verdino


The New York Times


I am pretty deep in thought here!


Jaffe did not get his morning coffee!


C.C. Chapman is a true inspiration!



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Calling All PodcampNYC Sponsors, Extend Your Experience

Are you Experienced?


Ok, that was lame but we all love Hendrix.


How far do you want to take your sponsorship of Podcampnyc? I know that our great sponsors are in it for the community and not simply as an act that will result in some type of ROI, but why not extend your brands conversation in world @ the PodcampNYC build in Second Life.


The build is now open for co-creation and we welcome all of you to come and take part. Provided our sim remains uncluttered (and ungriefed) we are more than happy to leave the build up for a few weeks and let you all create and converse at will. Those who are not sponsors and want to create, please talk to me first. I want this to be a community affair and I don't want to block any content however, I want to make sure those who contributed to the event get the spotlight. That being said, this is a community of passionate individuals and I love to see passion at work!



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The Persistent Conversation

Lifelogging, digital identity, social media convergence and many other concepts have swept over me as of late like so many strands of soft straw pushing me towards new ways to communicate (talk about stupid metaphors, or should I say simile J ) and think about the role that everyone plays in the social media sphere, whether they like it or not.


With all the various social media outlets I feel that some of us are in a state of schizophrenia, struggling to meld our various “digital selves” into one overarching being that is ultimately a true representation of who we are. Others are paving the way the help solidify a common structure in which we create one digital persona and simply port it from technology to technology, conversation to conversation.


If we look at Second Life we find many who are trying to create an alternate digital identity. While I feel that there is a certain cathartic element to a creation of this sort, as Bob Marley once said:


“You’re running and you’re running away, but you can’t run away from yourself”


The conversation must go on!


Check out Joseph Jaffe’s ATS #74. It is a hyper mashup of conversation that leverages Twitter, Podcasting, Skype and lets us not forget the original social media, conversation. Jaffe is back on top (not that he ever went to the bottom, he has just been busy I suppose…great to have him back in full force though).


In this episode Jaffe shows us the power of cross media conversation. He (along with C.C Chapman, Christopher Penn and Jay Moonah) also gives a shout out to Podcamp NYC (which is totally cool).


I am very excited for Podcamp NYC this week. Not because I helped organize, not because I am speaking and not because it is around the corner from where I live (well, that is a plus). I am excited because I feel as though many social worlds are colliding. We have renowned Second Lifers like Frans Charming, Rhiannon Chatnoir, John Swords and Mark Wallace (who are all members of the Twitterati, two of whom are podcasters) as well as the podcasting rockstars mentioned above (who are also members of the Twitterati and are all podcasters).


The common thread is that all of us have something to say and are not afraid to say it. Maybe one day the revolution that is social media will make all of us feel empowered to put ourselves out there in the ether and speak our minds. Right now we are just at the beginning!


Sorry for the meandering in this post. I hope you enjoyed it though.


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Pontiac Second Life Case Study/RAW NOTES

Leo Burnett Detroit helped its Pontiac client launch a presence in Second Life in November. Pontiac’s launch of its six-region land mass called Motorati Island began with a twist--an offer of free “land” for Second Lifers to create a vibrant car culture within the community. Staying true to the spirit of Second Life, which empowers members to build the community, Pontiac has provided parcels of land around Motorati Island to Second Life entrepreneurs and artists who wish to create their own projects devoted to car culture. This session will give attendees an inside glimpse of how Motorati Island came to be, and key learnings from being a major marketer in Second Life.
Tor Myhren, Executive Vice President, Executive Creative Director,  Leo Burnett Detroit



  • "You can't sell a fuck you to a client"

  • There was some car stuff but not much....

  • Gave away land to users who were interested in car culture but people had to submit proposals

  • Let people do what they want to do

  • Co Create Island- Fusion Marketing

  • The only thing that was prefabricated  was the dealership and the racetrack

  • No one knows where it will go are what will happen

  • Total Cost= one commercial production cost




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Virtual Worlds as Interactive Television/Raw Notes

With the advent of virtual worlds networks, individual channels and individual shows can now create interactive versions of their franchises and engage fans directly, immersing them into the environment. Find out how to successfully extend a television brand, including measuring audience participation and extending the advertising business model.
- Sibley Verbeck, CEO, The Electric Sheep Company



  • There haven't been too many interactive TV experiences that have take off but I think that is what we already have

  • The real interaction is amongst the people, between each other. Here we have a new communication medium they allow people in different places to feel like they are in the same place

  • They can interact with each other as well as the environment

  • What is going to get mass audiences into virtual worlds is entertainment

  • The mass audience does not care about virtual worlds, what they care about are thing in their lives such as entertainment

  • That is the engine that is going to drive the ecosystem

  • More than half the content is the people

  • (talking about the virtual MLB Home Run Derby)

  • Multiplying the value of the content

  • How do you bring your audience in, in a way that works for them (this is key)

  • What are you going to do for your customers and audience that drives value

  • Experimentation

  • Ongoing Engagement

  • It is not about the platform but how you are going to reach your audience


  • What VW will need to reach critical mass

    • ease of importing assets into virtual worlds

    • full scripting language

    • Video with DRM

    • interoperability

    • events

    • ease of use, UI

    • customization

    • openness

    • search

    • landmarking




  • Virtual Worlds and the Mobile Platform- Idean

    • Mobile is your avatar in real life

    • Mobile enables deeper social avatars




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Integrated Marketing - Merging Virtual Activities with Real World Activities/RAW NOTES


Never before have there been so many new outlets for marketing. Find out from leading experts how to create a virtual worlds presence that integrates and complements your existing marketing activities.


Joel Greenberg, Sr. Planner, GSD&M
Greg Verdino, VP/Director of Emerging Channels, DIGITAS (moderator)
Roger Holzberg, Vice President - Creative Director / Walt Disney Parks
and, Resorts Online
Randal Moss, Manager of Futuring and Innovation Center,
American Cancer Society
Paul Hemp, Senior Editor, Harvard Business Review


Roger




  • Virtual Magic Kingdom

    • 50th celebration of Disneyland

    • The wedding of virtual with real

    • Seeking a way to build brand loyalty with the Tween audience

    • Just casting the net out there is not necessarily going to reel em in

    • Walt Disney sent out maps out Disneyland before it would even built. If he could envision it in his mind it could become a reality

    • In Virtual Worlds there has to be some level of entertainment before UGC comes in

    • Virtual Worlds Are Marketing that require marketing




Randall



  • Relay for life ( :) )

  • A hearty thanks to the in world volunteers

  • "You want ROI, here's your ROI numbers"

  • Future United- SLCC


Paul



  • Predicts growth of 3D aspects being attached to 2d sites

  • Association of a brand with an immersive online experience

  • VW going to fundamentally change e-commerce

  • Shopping as a social experience

  • E-Tailing 2.0 (I call it 3.Commerce)

  • Dissolving the boundaries between real and virtual worlds, it is important to look at not just bring real into virtual but virtual into real worlds

  • How can you use your brand as a social experience?

  • Do you target the flesh and blood consumer or the avatar?

  • Is an avatar some sort of a prism the refracts a marketing message? We are changed when we step into our avatar


Verdino- "In various virtual worlds I range from a teenage boy to a middle aged women. It is virtually meaningless to not try and understand the person behind the avatar"


Joel



  • What is the value of someone spending an hour in my place in a virtual world

  • It is fairly easily conceptually to bring real world fan base into virtual worlds

  • Recommends Convergence Culture, Fourth Turning (journey??)


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Colin J. Parris, Ph.D., VP, Digital Convergence, IBM Research/RAW NOTES

Under his leadership IBM has formed an emerging business born from the IBM Innovation Jam around emerging technologies and virtual worlds. Join Colin to hear how IBM has been experimenting in virtual worlds for business in three key areas: virtual commerce and work with clients to apply virtual world to business problems; driving new kinds of collaboration and education; and experimentation in pushing the limits with a broad community on what might be possible in virtual worlds.



  • Some say we are on the cusp of a big change, I say we are in it

  • It is a about people collaboration and innovation

  • working as a board community, we can make these virtual worlds truly fit for business and society


  • Two Core Potential Elements

    • Accelerating Large Scale Collaborative Innovation

    • Accelerating Learning and Growth Capabilities of Individuals and Teams



  • External Collaboration is the key to innovation

  • The collective passion of a specified skill group

  • The personal enthusiasm of an open source network is priceless


  • Early Virtual Business Applications

    •  Commerce

    • Education and training

    • Coordination and innovation



  • Virtual Worlds will have a huge impact on the web as we know it

  • It useful to remember the early days of the web



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A Virtual Worlds Road Map - where is it all going/RAW NOTES (VM2007)

Disclaimer- This is done live and is posted without editing. I cannot be held accountable for typos and misquotes


Accurately reading the tea leaves for tomorrow is sometimes more art than science. Hear from the experts what demographic trends are emerging and what to expect for the rest of 2007 and beyond. A look at established and emerging platforms coming to market or having recently entered the marketplace.  This lecture will speak from experience in how to take advantage of opportunities inherent in new platforms.
Jerry Paffendorf, Resident Futurist, The Electric Sheep Company
Reuben Steiger, CEO, Millions of Us
Corey Bridges, Co-founder, Executive Producer, & Marketing Director
  The Multiverse Network (moderator)
Mark Wallace, Journalist, 3pointD.com
John Donham, VP Production, Areae Inc.


 Near Term Trends




  • Mark

    • Development of new social virtual worlds

    • Fragmentation of the space

    • People are starting to get the idea that this can be used a business tool

    • It's nice to see all this attention but you have to wonder whether or not this is "dumb money"

    • Great to look at is as an experiment but not sure it is at the point of mission critical

    • Potentially a lot of fall off




  • Jerry

    • Disagree's with Mark, "nothing has even started yet"

    • Virtual Worlds are the direct sister of the gaming industry

    • Its gotta be all growth right now



  • Mark Rebutts :) (this is getting good)


  • Reuben

    • Fairly certain that all predictions on this panel will be wrong


    • Themes

      • Certain of.....over the next 2 years we will all work out what formula works well

      • Social versus Entertainment

      • 2d versus 3d

      • Control Versus Chaos

      • PG vs. Mature

      • Role play vs. Extension

      • Hybrid vs. Dedicated

      • Consumer vs. Enterprise

      • Proprietary versus Standards






  • John


    • What is the base form of UGC?

      • It is no wonder Flickr does a great job

      • It starts from being fun, what is the engaging experience






  • Mark

    • Flickr as identity creation tool




  • Reuben

    • My concern is that there is going to be a tide of people who say, "this is a great early model but, this is not going to be what takes off" (rough quote, sorry Reuben)

    • We should all be aware that ordinary mainstream people are doing very sophisticated thing with things like Second life





  • "The Opportunity is larger that just UGC" Bridges

  • "UGC is great because it is access to do it" Paffendorf

  • "Vastly accelerates innovations" Paffendorf

  • "Call me when the crowd makes Titanic: Steiger

  • "From a user prospective it provides a great discovery process" Steiger

  • "If you broaded the view you can make 3d spaces very sticky" Wallace

  • "3d is kind of a red herring" Donham

  • "I can turn my back on you in a 3d space" Wallace


(minor chaos break)



  • "Now we are living in this global online world" Paffendorf

  • Virtual worlds as democratizing tool

  • Question from Flipper- "It is freedom to create not chaos"

  • Flipper P. "Can you get naked in mulitverse?"


(Flipper you are the man! :) )



  • "There are different uses for virtual worlds" Bridges

  • "There are definitely competitors to second life" Paffeendorf

  • "This thing is speeding up and it is daunting" Steiger in reference to SL growth

  • Google is to be filled with avatars and imagination- Paffendorf

  • "Externalize your imagination" Paffendorf

  • "There are a lot of short term, two three year worries, taxation, gambling" Steiger

  • "There is some interesting hopeful outcomes" Steiger

  • "I am pretty sure that we as individuals will gain more and more control of information about ourselves" Wallace

  • Bridges speaks about "Mouse Potatoes" and how he does not see that as a negative thing

  • You can already see the pieces in place" Wallace

  • How closely are these little corners of the metaverse going to be fit together" Wallace



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Virtual World Consumer Behaviors and The Evolution of Social Networking - How to Plan for it./RAW NOTES

Are virtual world consumers trend setters?  Are they early adopters?  Understand the demographics of virtual world participants so you can plan your presence accordingly.  What do they respond well to?  How do you communicate your efforts... from launch to day-to-day management... understand the "in's" and "out's" of your audience. Are virtual worlds the MySpace-killers?
- Jeska Dzwigalski, Community Developer, Linden Lab
- Betsy Book, Director of Product Management, Makena Technologies
- Teemu Huuhtanen, President, North America & EVP Business.
   Development., Sulake Corp. Ltd.
- Linda Zimmer, President & CEO, MarCom:interactive
- Ren Reynolds, TerraNova (Moderator)


Teemu



  • Habbo Hotel

  • 500 people in 19 countries at Sulake

  • Self Expression

  • 4 areas, Habbo Hotel, Habbo Homepage (dynamically linked to the virtual world), games, frontpages

  • Who wants to be a Habbonaire :)

  • 50/50 boys and girls


Betsy



  • There.com and VLB, The Hills and Pimp My Ride

  • There is much like the other worlds mentioned today, a social experience based around community

  • Makena's mission, give users experience to extend their real social lives

  • Interplay between virtual and real life

  • All items are reviewed before they go in world as the world is 13 and up

  • Copyright protection

  • 50/50 male, female- Over time they are beginning to skew more female

  • Average age is 22

  • 2007 selectively introducing brands into There

  • Brand Centric Affinity groups happening organically


Linda



  • The virtual consumer

  • You must engage

  • Our social networks are evolving

  • There is evidence that we are re-tribalising

  • Virtual Worlds As "Third Places"


  • Virtual Worlds Propose unique marketing issues

    • A place away from home you can gather and socialize, similiar to what Starbucks is doing

    • Augmentalist vs. Immersionalist

    • VW Immersion vs. RW action



  • How does the virtual translate to the real

  • Co-Creating real world products was the number one thing that people wished to do with brands in world



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Case Study - Sundance Film Channel/RAW NOTES

Case Study - Sundance Film Channel
Christopher Barry, VP, Digital Media and Business Strategy, Sundance Channel




  • How we got in...

    • connect with users in a new way

    • many of the films play in arthouse's in major cities, this extended their reach

    • Provided the unexpected. shining the spotlight on new voices.



  • Created two characters (vincent and maya) that have blogs in and out of world, they have email addresses's and can be contacted

  • 2 Media Lounges at the island (VOD)

  • Blog documenting the entire process

  • "Four Eyed Monsters"- 300 simultaneous video streams

  • 9 part short film fest

  • Screening of webisodes in world and prompt discussions

  • On air throws for in world events

  • There is a thriving community looking for professional content

  • "It is kind of fun having to check your avatars email"

  • If your brand is all about control then it is probably not for you

  • New ways to tell stories


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Technologies/RAW NOTES

Disclaimer: My battery is dying and I have a client call so I am going to have cut out early :(
Alas, I died, will write something later tonight


This session will examine the new technologies and platforms. Speakers will discuss the alternatives that are available for the various platforms. The virtual worlds medium offers unique complexities including interactivity, immersion, scalability and intense user involvement.  New technologies now leverage those elements. New and emerging platforms will also be discussed.
-Corey Bridges, Co-founder, Executive Producer, & Marketing Director
 The Multiverse Network
-Jerry Paffendorf, Futurist, Electric Sheep Company (moderator)
-John Bates, Evangelist, Entropia Universe
-Joe Miller, Vice President, Platform & Technology Development,
  Linden Lab
-Rick Giolito, President, Trilogy Studios


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  Keynote - Viacom's MTV Networks and Nickelodeon/RAW NOTES

 Matt Bostwick, SVP, Franchise Development, MTV Music Group
 Jeffrey B. Yapp, Executive VP, MTV Networks
Steve Youngwood, Executive VP, Digital Media, Nickelodeon



Viacom has emerged as one of the new media leaders combining television, 2D web and 3D virtual communities in one integrated system. Virtual Laguna Beach to Nickelodeon’s Nicktropolis, Viacom is helping define the next-generation media and advertising models. Virtual worlds allow media and entertainment innovators unprecedented new ways to engage consumers with the franchises they’ve enjoyed in front of their television screens.


Yapp



  • "The convergence between linear programming and user generated content"

  • "Watch TV, Live TV"

  • "When viewers are engaged a deeper level, you can bet they are engaged with you brand"

  • "Branded content that our audience wants to engage with"

  • "How they will engage in a virtual world is how they will engage in real world"

  • Mention of Joost- people have come to expect more from TV

  • "Media does not replace media"

  • The convergence of TV and virtual worlds allows for personalization and customization

  • Second Life and There are just the tip of iceberg

  • The true power of Virtual Worlds will be realized when consumers turn from passive to active users

  • In virtual worlds, users decide what is cool and control brand messages

  • 99% of the brands are exposed to brands that enter VLB


Matt



  • "I am not smart enough for this business"

  • How do you take consumers deeper than you ever have before; Passion, lifestyle, community

  • "This thing is moving faster than anyone imagined"

  • People are living completely separate lives online

  • 4D TV = TV+3D

  • "Its like walking through the TV screen...its an opening experience"

  • "Social Networking on steroids"

  • People Begin the content

  • Adding guilds where users can become specialists, DJ etc

  • In world e-commerce- You can buy it in VLB and then in Real life

  • how do you take people who know nothing about virtual worlds and bring them into this type of experience

  • Not just going broad but going deep, engagement

  • Interact and talk about brand

  • 4D branding

  • Virtual Pimp My Ride

  • Virtual Logo- A world created from the ground up by the community

  • "one world my avatar"


Steve



  • The social networking medium for the youth demographics

  • It is not a solitary experience

  • Needs to be user driven

  • Has to have a baseline of professionally crafted experience

  • the economy has to work for it to feel real

  • Dual Revenue stream

  • The average person spends 3 hours on Neopets

  • Multiple lands with stories

  • Neopian Times which is written by the community

  • Nicktropolis- The first to have a virtual worlds for kids

  • Virtual Playground


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