Business Management Consultant - Stuntdubl Search and Marketing Consulting

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SEORefugee Cartoons
SEO Idiot has done some cartoons as well-and-
My new themesong.

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The ASIDIC conference was a completely new experience for me. It gave me a chance to get outside my comfort zone in the world of search and try to soak up some of the cutting edge information in an entirely new field. The conference gave off a bit of the same vibe that the music industry must have felt shortly after the reign of Napster began. MP3’s were “good enough”, and so is Google in many instances. I’m sure premium content will make out just fine, but the shifts in distribution and consumption within the marketplace has caused a chasm that many will fall into. It will also create a lot of opportunity, as folks in the music industry have established with the increase of music consumption. The experience of focusing on distribution models was quite eye opening, and inspired many ideas that will definitely come in handy for future ventures.

As a brief aside - If I’ve misquoted anyone in the upcoming posts of notes - please let me know, and I will make changes - Also feel free to point me in the direction of any presentations, notes, or other pertinent information that I may have missed in my mess of links - this was my first attempt at blogging a conference, and I have rekindled respect for Barry, Chris, Ben, Lee, Mike and the rest of the SEO/SEM bloggers that cover conferences. This was TOUGH - and I’m two weeks late on posting!

I have a whole new appreciation for those just getting into the world of search that are attending their first conference and trying to understand the acronyms and vernacular that is a part of our world. I was completely overwhelmed trying to disseminate the informational nuances of the world of ASIDIC. I already posted my question of “what is federated search”, after being surprised that I was so unaware of this terminology. Being an information junkie, I was overwhelmed with a tidal wave of new terminology, jargon, and ideas that overcame me from being exposed to a new type of thought process.

The ASIDIC conference was opened by program chair and local host, Frank Bilotto with his comments on “The Future is Now … or Never”. I had met Frank returning from SES in San Jose, and we had an engaging conversation on the world of premium content publishers, and how they were just not yet adapting to new search technology because of their fairly rigid views. While I do often encounter resistance to the opportunities that search affords its advocates, I don’t spend nearly as much time trying to preach to the unconverted. I do, however, enjoy try to understand the views and beliefs that these fears stem from.

I realized about halfway through the first day that I had been, in fact, recruited to be an instigator of discussion in the world of ASIDIC after Frank realized just how passionate I was about search and the opportunities that the new media offers businesses that embrace it (Frank did not deny this fact when I confronted him on it). Now anyone that knows me can tell you that I am probably one of the least combative people you will ever come across, and these days I rarely find incentive in extolling the virtues of search engine optimization since I am already currently more than overwhelmed with work as a one man operation. I think Frank knew that I wouldn’t be able to resist this debate, however, and that my non-sales pitch approach would probably be a good fit.

When I saw the insane amount of opportunity available to some of these publishers that they were in some cases completely overlooking it seemed the equivalent of a famished man right around the corner from a free all you can eat super buffet, not willing to get up and see what’s around the corner while complaining about everyone else eating so well. These companies are hardly famished, but the lack of experimentation among a group of such intelligent people was pretty astounding to me. I think part of the resistence to change, is that many of these company’s have had google’s technology decades before google did. The technology doesn’t inspire them, and they are still grasping just how important the marketing and critical mass is to the major search engines success (due highly in part to their differentiation in distribution model).

As Elisabeth and I sat and ran the “site commands” on several of the sites of these large companies we were shocked by these missed opportunities. I got the impression that many of the folks were so averse to the perceived “black magic” of search optimization that they had completely overlooked fundamentals of indexing and the unique opportunities that were available to them by simply making a larger portion of their content accessible to the major engines. It was very frustrating to see this vast availability of opportunity being so seriously underutilized.

Throughout the conference, I kept coming back to the level of forward thinking displayed by one company from the premium content publishing world that HAD embraced the field of search engine marketing, ThomasNet. Paul Gerbino, a VP from Thomas publishing spent a bit of time discussing how his company had embraced the web with Frank Bilotto. The company has made an amazing shift from print to electronic, that must have been an extremely difficult sell for the advocates of change.

It seemed to me that there are a few key questions to be answered by the large publishers as the demand to threats from lower overhead digital media providers becomes stronger. Most critical among these will be: Where should the registration and subscription “walls” be placed? (certainly much lower than they are now in my mind), How will we transition those digital emigrants, and how long do we leave our legacy systems in place? What are the actual threats that the new medium creates, and how do we overcome them? What opportunities for new revenue models does this new medium provide? How can we effectively track information about our users? How can we better determine what our users want? How do we more effectively monetize those needs?

Overall, it was fascinating for me to see how this industry was structured. It took me outside my comfort zone and gave me the ability to think from a brand new perspective – mainly from those most affected by the changes associated with search technology. I feel like I just got a brief glimpse into another world, but it is certainly something I will continue to research. Content may be king – but accessibility to that content and finding new models for the monetization of information will be the only things that keep it from being free by adding a unique new sort of expertise and organizational value. Some content (like how to bandage a wound) needs only to be “good enough”, where other content (how to perform open heart surgery) must be very precise. Expertise, credibility, and organization is what separates “good enough” from premium. The prevalence of “good enough” information has shaken the premium content industry to its core, but also serves to only increase the overall value of expert information and reducing the noise level.

I would like to say a special thanks to everyone whose discussions have provided me with new reading and writing inspiration for quite a long time to come, and offer a huge thank you to all the friendly, brilliant new people that I met, and especially to Frank Bilotto for giving me the opportunity to experience the ASIDIC world. It was a very pleasurable experience that I won’t forget for quite a while to come. To find out more information about attending an ASIDIC conference or becoming an ASIDIC member – you can visit their website at www.asidic.org

Other ASIDIC Commentary

• John Blossom on the 2006 ASIDIC Conference

Just in case you missed in the previous post - please contact me with any mistakes. The notes are pretty raw - with just a little bit of personal commentary, so please let me know if you spot errors or oversights.

Todd’s commentary: Paul caught a bit of flack for Frank’s title on the session, but he lived up to his rep. Thomasnet has made a great leap of faith from beyond the confines of a subscription model to shift to a new media ad model. His interview with Frank was both entertaining and insightful. I asked a question about what were the determining variables of where the “registration wall” should exist with such a site (which I thought was quite pertinent to everyone in the room) - but was too busy listening to actually type his response.

Paul Gerbino – Interview with an Undiscovered Genius

Paul begins by discussing the migration away from print, and the struggles that they faced. He talks about what changed – going from being the expert to mindshare expanding to google, yahoo, and other properties. Imagine an 1898 company as “pureplay”.

Q:There are two ways that you drive traffic to your site – Can you give an overview of each, and the success levels that you’ve had.

A: We view google as friend, vendor, partner, as well as foe for various different reasons. We had to identify what level to make available and how to make the information available. We want to make sure the content is there, but that there is content BEHIND the search. We need to balance discoverability with adding value to the user as a destination.

Q: Is more traffic driven from organic or PPC?
A: More traffic is currently coming from organic. Thinking that we are the only act in town is naïve, and can lead to disaster.

Q: Where is the website revenue derived from?
A: 98- 99% online advertising as a revenue model

Q: What was your experience putting content out for free?
A: We’re looking at partnering with content providers that users may be able to pay per play for. Moving to the free model has allowed us to reach a whole new audience. The average query is in the 5 – 6 word range. We live in the long tail.

Q:What do we do once they get here? SES is about driving traffic – but we have the unique advantage of deciding what they do when they arrive.
A:It’s all about the landing page. If you have a template that is the most landed on page – that’s where you start your redesign. Look at what you can use as a value to get an action, create a bookmark or subscription. 22% users convert to an action.

Q: Anything else about Thomas?
A: If we can do it so can you. Three years ago, pitching RSS to executive staff was extremely difficult. Now RSS delivers 10% of page views.

Frank talks about going from a $25 billion industry to $16billion in less than 10 years.

Q: Why haven’t content publishers embraced the web fully?
A: Putting print into electronic doesn’t working – Paul talks about e-catalogs and why they don’t work. It’s an established technology that hasn’t been fully embraced. If you talk to about a trade publication about RSS their eyes glaze over.

Frank thinks google’s mission is to “control the world’s information” rather than organize it. What happens when Google buys one of the large content publishers to the rest of the publishing world?

Paul: Google’s mantra is to do no evil – this doesn’t mean they won’t do any harm to your business – Are they friend or foe – and how? It’s not that we don’t like google, but we are competing for the vertical mindshare.

Frank: We have all been concerned about the google content – Won’t google search be “good enough”
Paul: It’s a buyer beware world with content. The challenge for premium content providers is to find out College students don’t buy content – people don’t BUY content because the budget is dwindeling. If you want to see where it’s going – walk around a college campus.

Frank: You said you live in the longtail – I’m not sure publishers can play in the longtail because they haven’t even reached the 80% yet – Should premium publishers be thinking of this big markets before worrying about the tail?
Paul: I laugh every morning when I wake up and realize I’m delivering content on sludge pumps and flushometers and get millions of pageviews per day. One things people learn over time is to add words to get a better search result. How much can you put out for free in an abstract or in premium?

Todd’s commentary: If you haven’t heard about Trexy - you will begin too shortly. Trexy has some very interesting technology “re-incorporating” user data into the search algorithms for improved relevancy. I got the opportunity to spend a bit of time with Nigel and his partner Megan, and have some discussion on their excellent ideas in regards to the future of search. I think their technology will be very well received if they can overcome the obstacle of critical mass (so go download the toolbar - and become a “trailblazer” for a bit).

Nigel Hamilton, CEO Trexy.com
Bookmarks, Histories, and Tags – What’s next for professional researchers?

Definition - Connectors = numbers of sources the engine is connected to.

Problems associated with indexing the web:
How can you consolidate the data and maintain precision?

Tools to help precision:
Bookmarks
Histories
Favorites
Tags
Social bookmarks

· Tagging – Not always helpful
· Takes time to apply a tag
· Tagging something well is not easy
· Tags can be inaccurate and misleading
· User bias – remember tags?
· Is tagging the future?
· What about the sins of search? – sloth?

The Memex – 1945
An enhanced supplement to personal and community memory created by trailblazers”
Dr. Vannevar Bush – “As We May Think”

**note - Aaron has been known to discuss Memex in the past.

Impact –
Ted Nelson – “As We Will Think” – coined Hypertext
Tim Berners Lee

Trailblazing
Trailblazer “those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of common record”

How search for information?
Remember - my trails – first we consultant our memories “do I know the answer to that?”

Share – Has someone else searched for this before?

Find – If they don’t know then we look for the answer ourselves.

Uses the example of signs to the conference as a “trail” versus remembering where the conference is.

Could we pass on microdiscoveries between people.
Trexy passes on trails from person to person

Q: How do we find the trail easier than the answer?
A: Trails are tagged with search terms – tags ARE the search terms for the trail

Q: What are the differences between the open web and the enterprise space?
A: If there are two versions of the same book – the book with highlighting and writing seems to be more valuable.

Q: How do you handle expert vs. non-expert?
A: There is currently no distinction. The distinction can be very valuable as people connect. “Our Trails” – Friends within your “mindspace” for your given topics.

Q: I am skeptical of “one right answer” – part of the learning process is the journey.

A: Authority is a dynamic in itself

Q: Why are we so concerned with social tagging when search IS tagging – can you expand?
A: People only have limited attention – People have an information need to be solved quickly. A longer trail is more difficult to game.

Trails will get progressively shorter and shorter.

**More Notes from Todd - perhaps trexy would have assisted me with understanding how people search

The ideas behind Memex sound similar those of transactive memory systems in regards to disseminating and retaining large amounts of information through new alternative methods.

Todd’s Commentary: Finally, someone more disturbed by Web 2.0 than me!! Okay, honestly I like web 2.0 as a marketing tool, but those in the know understand that the concepts are the same - just packed in design dripping with ajax, round corners, and excessive use of gradients. Jean and I had one of my most enjoyable conversations at the conference on her excellent presentation topic. Jean is an SEO (she just doesn’t know it) - and often does “findability analysis” for website - a great term that I may have to swipe from her:) Our discussion sparked some interesting ideas for me including why SEO is more than just a process, and why it has such a negative connotation outside the circle of people that claim to be it’s artisans.

Web 2.0: The next Generation? Are you Serious? We’ve been doing this for years
What is Web 2.0?
Jean Bedord – President, eContent Strategies

Basics:
Word of Mouth Marketing
Viral marketing
Blogging/opinions/comments
Digg/ news rating
Recommendations
Reviews
Ratings

Reusable Content

Basic: Outside Services
Software as a service
On demand computing
Outsourcing
Application service provider
Service bureau
Time sharing

Basic: Search Services
Public Web search engines – google yahoo, msn
Commercial services – dialog, factive, lexis-nexis
Desktop search - Coprnic, google
Enterprise search -Fast, verity/autonomy

Users want usability, not speed, in enterprise search

Findablity
Online industry/ information scientist/ librarians
Answers to questions
Relevant information

Advertising
Search industry – agencies
Pay per click, pay per action/ impressions
Direct marketing/ direct response

Distribution
Search engine optimization
Ecommerce

Verticals
Aggregation of consumer websites
Consumer vertical search
Travel
Shopping
Job search
Real estate

Databases created by aggregators

Basic saved searches
Alerts
Persistent search
Rss feed subscriptions
Current awareness
Clips
Track-factiva
Selective dissemination of information

Basic: Categorization
User generated
Folksonomies
Tagging

Software
Search behavior
Personalization parameters

Publisher generated
Taxonomy
Ontology
Thesaurus
Controlled vocabulary

Basic: Words
Keywords
Advertiser buys ads
Search engines display on search results pages
Publishers allow on webpages

Search terms to the user
Query formulation
Synonym problem

Indexing to content producer

Basic: Ranking results
Popularity
Google pagerank
Literature citation analysis

Algorithmic relevance
Rating systems
Alphabetical
Chronological – Date of publication

Takeaways
Business basics are constant!
Human behavior
Revenue measures

Content is still challenging
Creating
Selling

Technology keeps changing
Jargon obscures evolution and functionality.

Search Engine – Google or Dialog?
Been doing this for 40 years!