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Microsoft Earnings Key Takeaways: Where’s the Search?

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The biggest acquisition news yesterday wasn’t Microsoft-Yahoo but Arby’s-Wendy’s. In both cases, search marketers are asking, “Where’s the beef?”

Better yet, analysts on the Microsoft conference call should have asked, “Where’s the search?”

Microsoft search queries and page views are up year-over-year. By how much? No Wall St. analysts asked the question.

Microsoft reported $4.4 billion in net income for the quarter.

Microsoft’s online services business increased revenue 40 percent to $843 million, including $143 million from aQuantive, which added 96 new publishers this quarter to the Atlas Publisher Solutions, the ad management platform that competes with Google’s DoubleClick division.

Online advertising for Microsoft grew 39 percent. If aQuantive ad revenue ($47 million) is excluded, Microsoft was up 29 percent. Microsoft’s online audience is still growing. Live IDs increased to 18 percent to 448 million.

Microsoft remains focused on the online advertising market (doubling by 2010 to $80 billion).

Yahoo would accelerate growth but the core strategy won’t change: drive innovation and search, increase value to advertisers and publishers through innovation and scale and grow user engagement across MSN and Windows Live properties.

The weak U.S. dollar may be Microsoft’s best friend. While about half of Google’s revenue comes from the U.S., two-thirds of Microsoft’s revenue is derived from users abroad. In addition, about 15 percent of revenue is in high-growth emerging markets.

Microsoft’s strategy of reinvesting existing business, pursuing organic and acquisition growth opportunities makes the company a formidable competitor with or without Yahoo - except in search.

Urban Mapping Unveils Geotargeting and Local Search Platform

7% of searches are local, including a zip code, city or neighborhood term. With over 10.8 billion searches conducted by Americans in the month of March alone, 7% is a lot of searches.

Now Urban Mapping is making it easier for search marketers to improve the effectiveness of their online advertising and paid search campaigns for local search. Today, the neighborhood data provider announced the launch of its Geomods platform, designed to “deliver more geographically-relevant results for users.”

Here’s what you can expect from the new platform:

• Platform utilizes standard web protocols and serves geographic terms relevant to a specified area.
• Provides a custom service area based on a variety of demographic, spatial and business factors (via a separate module)
• Leverages the installed user base of its neighborhoods boundary database, providing many of the same geographic keywords that power search portals, Internet yellow pages and mapping platforms.

“This geotargeting platform is a radical departure from traditional IP-based geotargeting,” said Ian White, Urban Mapping CEO. “It has been proven again and again that traditional geotargeting does not provide a high degree of confidence for local search, where granularity is of paramount importance—blocks, not ZIP codes or metropolitan areas matter.”

Urban Mapping’s GeoMods services includes US, Canadian and European coverage. The company currently counts SuperPages.com, YellowPages.com, MapQuest, Microsoft’s Live Search, Ask.com as customers.

Related Reading:
The Benefits of Geotargeting
Marchex Shows How to Cash In on Local Search
Mobile Local Search: A Perfect Storm
Social Media Meets Local Search

SEW Experts: SEM Tools of the Experts

There are a variety of SEM tools available to search marketers. You should be able to find something to fit every need, and every style. In today’s SEM Crossfire column, “SEM Tools of the Experts,” Frank Watson shares some of the favorite tools of top search marketers.

Google, Yahoo & MySpace Team Up for OpenSocial

OpenSocialYahoo, MySpace and Google have pledged their support to open standards for social media development and data by joining together to form the OpenSocial Foundation. The group will ensure that OpenSocial continues as an open, community-governed specification.

OpenSocial is a specification, launched by Google last year, that defines a common API for social applications across multiple Web sites. It has implications for search marketers and application developers, since it will speed up the development of cross-platform applications. It could also force the hand of non-members, such as Microsoft and Facebook.

Using JavaScript and HTML, developers can create applications with OpenSocial that access features in a social network, like friends and update feeds. By using a common API, developers can build one application that will work across multiple social platforms, extending the reach of their applications and making it easier to add more functionality for users.

The formation of the foundation is not entirely altruistic. By uniting the interests of three of the largest Web entities, the group will have a strong voice in the development of future standards and specifications.

According to Yahoo, “The foundation will provide transparency and operational guidelines around technology, documentation, intellectual property, and other issues related to the evolution of the OpenSocial platform, while also ensuring all stakeholders share influence over its future direction.”

Totally Plugged In @ SES New York:  13 Undeniable Symptoms

4:00AM morning outside the New York Hilton: the city wakeup-crowd stirs pre-dawn Manhattan lights. From the 53rd St. lobby the regal doorman guides me to Kennedy International-bound taxi and deli coffee black…impeccable New York service in hand. The cab ride provides the necessary 30 minute Internet-access window to post aimClear Blog conference coverage waiting in WordPress.  Then it occurs to me: “Dude, I must be pretty screwed up to be blogging in a TAXI.”

Search marketing conference attendees seem to be the most plugged-in-public group of techno-comrades on earth. We rove in packs of iPhone and laptop-totting pied-pipers evangelizing link love, holistic patterns, authentic participation, conversion tracking, and good will. These SEMS, SEOs, PPCs, Mr., Mrs. & Ms are such beautiful people. I love the search marketing industry because ya’ll are SO plugged into the grid, running remote marketing machine empires from Blackberries.

We’re a curious and over-stimulated group, resulting in behavior that will have future anthropologists mumbling to themselves. It’s a great time to be alive and so many incredible ways to connect for business and pleasure. Here’s 13 Undeniable symptoms of total communications-grid immersion.  These are not listed in any particular order of severity.

  • Blogging in a taxi, blogging in the Mens Room, blogging on the bus to the Microsoft Party, in the Thai restaurant, answering comments on my Blackberry, editing POSTS on my Blackberry, blogging instead of sleeping, forgetting to eat, blogging, blogging, Blogging, BLOGGING!
  • Talking on a cell phone (using an earpiece) in the elevator with other people. I’ve noted that these days such behavior is becoming condoned common place in New York and Chicago. In Duluth, Minnesota it totally creeps out fellow elevator passengers and makes one  feel ostracized, as if it’s bad manners to behave as such a way.
  • The whole world has become one giant laptop lounge. At SES conferences there actually are places labeled as such. Moving from one seminar hall to another, many don’t even bother to put notebooks away while walking from room to room. The world is always at our fingertips.
  • Watching Lee Odden and Kevin Heisler’s frenetic inside-Twitter Buzz tick down over shoulder on laptop screen.  Is there any channel these guys can’t leverage?
  • Having the honor of speaking on the Social Media Track @ SES New York, and afterwards dealing with my 12 year old’s flipping guinea litter pig crises by BlackBerry Facebook.
  • Transferring YouTube video files for upload from 4 gig thumb drive (worn around the neck) over Shrimp Scampi, raw oysters on the half shell (with Tabasco mmm), perfectly chilled Fume Blanc, and crab puffs.
  • When “essential travel gear” includes an extension cord, power strip, duct-tape, ground-lift 2-prong adapter, and a Euro AC kit. Backing up my notebook offsite each evening while sleeping.
  • Sitting in the conference audience snagging a little work time during Q&A, I’ve got simultaneous IMs going with staffers back at the home office (GoogleTalk)in Duluth, coveted London WordPress vendor (MSN Messenger),  design/build firm in Minneapolis (AIM), client in Connecticut,  ISP in Texas, dialog with 2 Stumble-friends, Facebook alerts, and my mom (Voice mail).
  • Facebook on my phone, StumbleUpon on my phone, Sphinning on my phone, “friending” on my phone, turn by turn navigation to the E-train on my phone…for goodness sake how is there ever time to talk on my phone?
  • Start recording audio and/or video (you guessed it, on the phone) when your friends speak, for possible editing, transcription and posting to one of 5 blogs. Ask them to turn it off when sharing techniques learned in private from Neil Patel.
  • You decide that neither the Blackberry OR iPhone feel as “intimate” as the Treo 650 nor Moto Q did. Even thinking that it’s important to have an “intimate” relationship with your phone is pretty messed up.
  • Twittering Naked in the Bath
  • Approaching someone I don’t know and saying “are YOU SpostareDuro, my sweet and enigmatic SEM friend from StumbleUpon?” …and being wrong.

    • Search marketers are modern communications channel gatekeepers, technicians, and salespersons, obsessively plugged into the grid. Millennial behavior chatter permeates our culture as SEMs have steadily become the 900 LB mainstream gorilla.

    My sense of is that we wouldn’t have it any other way than total grid immersion. Farewell SearchEngineStrategies NYC 2008. &nbsp You’re still the beautiful New York lady, shining city-scene of light and global opportunity. The culture of marketing king-makers, search marketing students and communications-grid pundits rocks my world.

    Footnote: Add the measured insanity of “blogging in the airplane isle whilst waiting for the aft cabin bathroom to free up.”

    Hulu Launches — Takes “You” Out of YouTube, Puts Copyright In

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    Hulu, the video search engine for copyrighted and trademarked entertainment, will premiere Wednesday.

    It will be a minor Internet miracle if the GE-NewsCorp JV Web site can keep up with online demand and search engine searchers.

    Get ready for the Invasion of the YouTube Snatchers. The iPod people are coming … and their PC’ed.

    Are you searching for The Simpsons?

    Can’t find The Big Lebowski?

    Is Buffy the Vampire Slayer in your database of intentions?

    Do you need to do a local search for Mulholland Drive? Can’t find it on Google Maps, Microsoft Virtual Eath or on YouTube (legally)?

    Hulu promises to run hoops around YouTube. The NBA and the NHL will deliver sports programming.

    News Corp, NBC Universal, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate will showcase films.

    There’s even a SuperBowl Ad Gallery for the search marketers ready to take over TV budgets and bounce traditional advertising agencies from the upfronts.

    No doubt YouTube will feel pressure to protect copyrights and clean up trademark infringement.

    The message from Hulu? Monetize this.

    Naked Conversations

    Matt McGowan, Becky Ryan

    Today the Compete.com blog invites readers to Get Naked with Matt McGowan (Incisive Media, VP of Marketing).

    In an in-depth interview, Matt discusses several key trends in the search marketing universe:

    1. Blended Search

    2. Social Media

    3. Mobile Search

    4. Analytics

    Great. But here’s what everyone wants to know:

    Compete asks–and Matt answers–the question on the inquiring minds of all search marketers:

    Who should we get naked with next?

    We hear there are some great parties planned during SES New York…check ‘em out.

    SEW Experts: Standards for SEO and SEM: The Time is Now

    The question comes up often in search marketing circles: Is now the time for search engine marketing standards? In today’s SEM Crossfire column, “Standards for SEO and SEM: The Time is Now,” Chris Boggs outlines a proposal for standards that define common tactics and assign them a risk level to help search marketers make wise decisions about the most appropriate search marketing plan for their situation.

    Do you agree with Chris? Please share your thoughts on establishing SEO standards at the Search Engine Watch Forums.

    Search Headlines & Links: February 27, 2008

    Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

    From the SEW Blog:

    Click to read the rest of this post…

    SEW Experts: The TV Writers — And the Buzz — Are Back

    Learning to use the tools we have before us is an integral part of online marketing success. In today’s Searching for Meaning column, “The TV Writers – And the Buzz – Are Back,” Kevin Ryan shows how the end of the TV writers’ strike holds some meaningful lessons for search marketers.

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