So i took the 60$ credit i have as Google AdWords credit and decided to start a mini-campaign to see how the Pay Per Click advertising model works. Here is the story:

I created a campaign for the Egyptian stock market section that we launched at Yellow Pages, i thought it could use some more traffic. I followed the guidelines and chosen my words and the minimum bidding CPC that google recommends for each word to appear in a good place in the search results page and in the Google partner network websites that are relevant to that topic. After this i specified the daily budget that i want which was 2$ per day that i reduce later to 1$ when i was about to run out of credit later

Here are some words i have chosen that were approved by google as good traffic words: Egyptian stock market, Egyptian stock market news, Egyptian Bursa, EGX30 prices, Talaat Mostafa Stocks, Mobinil Stocks, ….

CPC was pretty cheap, $0.05 for Egyptain Stock Market, some words were cheaper other words were more expensive…. I’m just gonna focus here on this word…

So everything was set and i got around 80 hits on the first day of campaign July 16th 2009.. The larger portion was coming from Google network website not from Google search results page but it doesn’t matter… very nice, i though i just put this to bed… but i was wrong.. look at the below:

On 17 July, hits dropped to 25, so i opened the control panel to see what was wrong, if found that google suggest me to change the CPC bid amount to $0.07 for Egyptain Stock Market instead of $0.05. I did that and here we go again, hits reached 80’s again.

On 21 July and 27 July, I had to re-adjust the CPC again and again until it reached $0.21 which seemed after this that it was not enough… I just started to give up, i can’t keep monitoring this way on aday to day basis… I have other more important stuff to do than adjusting some keywords CPC… I took a look after a while and i found that the CPC recommeneded by google Passed the $1.10 margin!!

I was paying 5 cents for a keyword and getting good traffic. Now i am paying 21 cents and hardly getting any traffic.. Then i was expected to pay one dollar for each click!! All the credit i have (60$) and was planning to use for one month would now evaporate in one day.

I don’t really understand the pattern, what happened during these 2 weeks that raised the bid amount for Egyptain Stock Market from 5 cents to 1 dollar?? is it really people paying more in that word suddenly, does it make any sense that no one was interested in this word at all and all in a sudden everyone wants it?? or was this some way Google AdWords drag their customers to invest more and more by offering words for a little price at the begining and then gradually increasing the value until it reaches the market amount? i don’t really know but i know 2 things for sure:

1.  I don’t like PPC model, too much complicated.
2. Normal end users and SME would find it extremely difficult to manage this on their own unless provided to them by an advertising agency that manages their account. Putting in mind also the special needs of customers in the middle east and that they would rather have someone do these things for them instead of doing it themselves because it is too “technical”. Self provisioning and PPC model might not be the best advertising solution for MEA region.

The Yellow Pages time-based contractual model is simple, efficient and easy. If you compare it to PPC model it is also much more cost-effective.

In Yellow Pages we are always trying to improve the services we are offering to advertisers by monitoring and analyzing the statistics, logs, impressions, and hits their different ads get. This is why our products are always changing from one canvass to another in the favour of the end user and the advertisers as well.

The advertising services that we offer are based on the contract time, which is one year. It does not depend on the number of impression or hits the investors get. This issue whether we should move to the model of Pay Per Click (PPC), Cost Per Click (CPC), and Pay Per Call (PPCall) are always under consideration.

So which model is better? which model suits the customers in our middle east region? what model would suit SME’s better which makes the greater proportion of the Yellow Pages advertisers in middle east and worldwide?

I will try to answer these questions..

St. Henry’s Pittsburgh closed in August 2005.  New Yellow Pages left at the front door  have been sitting there for a time.

Find the Phonebook

What if your customers tell you they are liking what you do but give you no insight into whether they actually like what you’re trying to accomplish.

For example, I assume there is some non-zero part of the population that derives real value from ‘junk mail’ (the paper kind) and phone books that are still delivered to houses across the nation by transforming them into great fire starters and fuel for indoor fires.

On surveying that audience, you’d likely hear glowing praise for the practice and encouragement for more. Survey everyone else and they’ll likely toss your form of neatly arranged ‘on a scale of one to five’ questions into the nearest recycle bin.

A more sensible approach (which I’m sure is common practice) would be to measure conversions and really see how effective direct mail campaigns are. I question how easy that would be to do with a phonebook however, so perhaps the annual yellow pages still has a few years of opportunity left yet.

I remember a time, not too long ago, when I would dutifully replace my old Yellow Pages immediately upon the arrival of the new one.  There’s even a dedicated kitchen drawer for it.

That drawer has not been accessed in months.

In this digital age, do the analog Yellow Pages still have something to offer? A directory that’s updated yearly? Well, it may surprise you, but I think it does. Apart from computer-literate blog readers like yourself, there are plenty of people who still look things up the old-fashioned way. They may even have rotary phones. And these people are still viable consumers, with actual money to spend.

The question is, how much of your audience do they comprise?

To hear the Yellow Pages tell it, they’re every bit as relevant as they were in 1992, and they’ve got the anecdotal evidence to back it up. And for some businesses, they remain The Only Game in Town. If you have only X$ to spend on marketing every year, isn’t your best bet to throw it all at the Business Bible?

If you’re selling rotary phones, yes. Otherwise, it’s time to reconsider.

My problem isn’t with the existence of the Yellow Pages–I think for certain clients, they remain a part of a well-balanced marketing mix. My problem is their attitude, which boils down to: “Advertise with us, or regret it. And by the way, we’re going to charge you five to six times what an average monthly home mortgage would be just for the privilege.”

Most advertisers work directly with a Yellow Pages rep, who has been schooled in the finer points of badgering, harassment and false negotiation. Recently a client showed me a proposal from their rep, which had them paying the same amount as the year before, but claimed to be deeply discounted. That’s because rates were going up! If you sign now, we can save you 30%!

Is this really how companies are helping businesses market themselves in 2010?

My other problem is that the Yellow Pages reps operate in a sanctimonious vacuum, maintaining their “only game in town” facade and barely acknowledging a client’s other marketing efforts. Consistency? Coordination? Not gonna happen–because their designers will provide the layout for free! It’s a value-add! A couple years ago, I opened up the Yellow Pages to my client’s ad (seeing it for the first time), and picked out five typos right off the bat. And, because the rep is willing to do/say anything to sign that lucrative contract, they’ll let the client load up the ad with whatever they want–usually about 60% more than anyone can be expected to absorb.

I put it to you, Yellow Pages–let’s work together. I’ll consider you if you’re right for my client and you pay me the same respect when you do an end-run and ambush my client directly. I’m trying to keep my client’s best interests in mind. Aren’t you?

A couple of days ago i made a post about how Egypt Yellow Pages iPhone application traffic is 60% more than the rest of the Mobile Yellow Pages traffic combined…

Today i will explain this more, we should be actually looking at the smartphone traffic share rather than the sales share. According to October statistics published by AdMob, iPhone smart traffic share represents about 50% of all the smartphone devices including Symbian, RIM, Windows Mobile, Android, Palm, …

So how did we reach this situation? It was just a step by step… Traffic share for iPhone:

• Feb 09: 33% share
• Aug 09: 40% share
• Oct 09: 50% share

Traffic share for Symbian:

• Feb 09: 43%
• Aug 09: 34%
• Oct 09: 25%

Android looks also promising, from 2% in February to 11% in October

8HSH59MCDDGM

I’m sitting now looking at the statistics for Egypt Yellow Pages mobile portal and iPhone application. I still can’t believe that the iPhone hits surpassed the mobile portal hits almost by 60%.

In the past 90 days, mobile portal pages views reached 100k whereas iPhone hits exceeded 160k. These reports are generated by admob, the mobile ad platform that has been especially popular on the iPhone, which was acquired by google this month for $750 million in stock.

If you look at the global smart phone market share you will know why i am surprised, apple is no more than 14% of the global market share with probably even less percentage in Egypt, as opposed to Symbian OS market share (Nokia and Others), which is more than half the market share.

Mobile Handsets Market Share

I believe that the reason behind this mystery is that almost all iPhone users connect to the internet, download and use new applications each day. The iPhone is pretty much useless device if you are disconnected. Moreover, since its launch, Egypt Yellow Pages iPhone application has been a great success, one of the top free apps in Apple AppStore.

Download Egypt Yellow Pages iPhone application

Learn more about Mobile Yellow Pages

Sarah Palin as seen by:

Frank Rich

The Times on Palin in Michigan and Indiana, but no mention of her ditching her fans in Indiana

Christopher Buckley

Steve Chapman

Joe Wurzelbacher

CNN

TBogg

TRex

Palin did manage to find time to ditch some fans yesterday so she could rip on the Senate healthcare vote in which her side has been winning on points but simply cannot stop fuliminating long enough to accept the trophy campaign funds for keeping health insurance in the corrupt hands of the private sector and overpaid executives.

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Even doctors are shocked by ER costs

Banning fatties from graduation ceremonies

Do you stand in line to have a doctor check your cancer (for the first time in 7 years), or do you get in line to see a dentist for your abscessed tooth?

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Starting with the premise that if you’re American, you’ve got biases, offends you know who.

I’m sure there are a few bias-free Americans, but the author of this twaddle is obviously not one of them. Another ode on the blackness of kettles as delivered to the National Association of Pot Makers by the Strib’s very own Katherine Kersten.

I did a wordle, but it was as boring as the original material.

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How corporations ruin everything they touch: the chocolate version.

They respect nothing, their customers least of all.

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While everyone was focuses on their buttinskiism on abortion, the Catholic bishops also rubbed themselves up against the dying.

They are the boss of you, and no, you don’t get a vote on that.

And if you argue with them, they’ll bar you from receiving communion, like the right reverend Thomas Tobin, Bishop of Providence, just did to Rep. Patrick Kennedy. Bishop Tobin rails against public officials in the name of Jesus, but even after wasting half an hour googling I could not find one utterance from him against war, although he was quick to let Kennedy know that He (the Bishop) knows God’s will better than Kennedy does. Even though you would go insane trying to find any proof* that the Holy Roman Catholic Church ever gave a shit about abortion prior to reinventing themselves in the mid 19th Century.

Why would anyone who claims to love God be a Catholic?

Click here to vote on whether you side with Bishop Tobin or Rep. Kennedy.

[* Click here for the sole exception — scroll down to paragraphs 4-8 and then wonder why our news media never provides this context in their stories.]

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The Manhattan Declaration. (WWJH?)

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Recovered memories: is that bullshit ever right?

And what of the folks who work so hard to manufacture false realities?

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Too many fucking Christmas stories already. This year lobby not to exchange gifts unless they’re handmade by the giver.

This holiday has nothing to do with the religion, it teaches all the wrong values, and more and more the corporations have turned it into such a festival of greed and overeating I really don’t know how any families survive the orgiastic excess.

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There is a point at which unions lose my support, and that comes when the union becomes more important than the work.

Professions shouldn’t be unionized. Yes, professionals need protection too, but what’s wrong with reviving guilds? Guilds take quality seriously, and speak to the need for higher standards.

Making everything be about your paycheck isn’t the only reason we have unions, but for some I guess it’s enough.

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Narco-terrorism, cont.

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Outstate nutjob crashes truck into U of M Public Health building thinking it was FBI headquarters.

Still trying to verify whether he had a copy of Going Rogue in his truck….

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Sara Robinson on Copenhagen.

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Bill Moyers is retiring. Digby reminds us why we should care more about this than we did about Oprah’s big announcement, and Charlieq has more.

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Astonishing:

What the press is up against? Unless only 20% of Americans read newspapers, it seems that the press hasn’t been doing a very good job of explaining to their readers just who exactly is running this country.

BTW, who’s Simon Cowell?

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St. Petersburg Times sells magazine to group with several Scientologist investors.

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eTc:

Obama’s first judge finally confirmed

Tasering UCLA students

Steve King: more full of it than even Michele Bachmann?

TBogg on Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book

There’s Freudian, and then there’s laying awake late at night fantasizing about cocksucking

Crossing the line from patriotism to insurrection/treason

Café Press bans Psalm 109:8 gear (if the Psalmers had a clue how to read scripture, they’d realize King David = Obama, and that means the Psalmers are praying for God to strike them down for their heresies)

Klan rallies at Ole Miss before big game on Saturday

Darksyde on the evolution “trick”

E&P embraces Dilbert (who doesn’t “get” it either)

Studs’ FBI files

Joe Lieberman, R-CT

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Via Ed, the Yellow Pages losers are starting to really, really piss people off.

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Politifact’s biggest lie to date:

1). Joe Lieberman says, “If  you look at last year’s presidential campaign, ‘you can’t find a mention of public option.’”

2). Politifact headlines that as “The public option was not discussed much during the campaign.”

3.) Lieberman says it wasn’t discussed, Politifact changes that to “not discussed much” and then says Lieberman is mostly right.

4.) Obama did discuss the public option on more than one occasion in 2008.

5.) Joe Lieberman is a liar.

6.) Politifact is not a factchecker so much as a message parlor for the establishment.

7.) Fuck Politifact. I’ve just taken them off my RSS feed and am never going to bother with their corrupt hogwash again. Getting half of them right isn’t a good record for factcheckers.

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Glenn Beck’s I Have A Scheme march.

Had enough? I sure have. This is one vacation I’m looking forward to.

Want more? Check out this video (with a Cody Diablo lookalike [not]) over at WINston’s.

And yes, that’s the least Sunday morningish music video ever, but not bad for watching football to.

Everybody Else is in the phone book. They advertise. Get what you want right away. Get Something for Nothing, too. It’s possible there is Some One who is very good at what they do who is not in the Yellow Pages. The Eternal is Everywhere. A good plumber lives Some Where in Puyallup.

Some peeps are good at what they do but don’t know it. They are not in the Yellow Pages, either. That’s what Yellow Pages’ Recruiters are for. They encourage people who are good at stuff or who maybe, might be good at stuff, to get their entries into the Yellow Pages.

Maybe there are some Warriors who resist Yellow Pages Recruiters. Maybe there are potential criminals and drug addicts who resist recruiters, too. We are not looking for any of those except if they are Warriors, who in an unlikely event have been forced into dire circumstances. Probably a Warrior or a Scout could not become criminal. It would only look that way. Deep Seeing Techniques do not see if Life within an Egg will be Alive.

Some Professionals could be good at what they do. It’s possible that some Good Professionals don’t advertise. Probably because the Good Professionals in the Yellow Pages expect you to find them and the Good Professionals who aren’t in the Yellow Pages will find you. This is a lot of personal responsibility if you need help right away for nothing.

Foundling or Finder are two different roles. If professional help requires roles, identities and prestidigitation then this could affect your outcome and the bill. Outcomes independent of identity are difficult to achieve. Professional help may be required. It’s a sticky situation. Week 20/75.

Apparently the best new idea at TechCrunch50 this year was a new way of finding Bob the Builder. The elevator pitch for the revolutionary and ultimately prize-winning RedBeacon web site went something like this.

“Simply type whatever service you’re looking for (be it plumber, gardener, or hair stylist), and the site will present a list of recommended service providers in your area.”

I know what you’re thinking: “Hang on isn’t this the Yellow Pages?” and, “Aren’t online directories a dime a dozen?” and also, “Hasn’t Google rendered business directories obsolete?” … “So what am I missing? Why all the excitement?”

The key word of course was referral. But let’s put those thoughts aside and rethink the opportunity. Let’s take a look at what the Yellow Pages could have become if the Strategic Planners of 1995 had been tasked with the BIG Problem of owning the future of business referrals.

• Step one was easy. All they had to do was put the Yellow Pages directory database online and they achieved that.
• Step two should have been to offer every listing in directory a Free “Yellow Pages” web page (e.g. Homestead). That would have allowed the customers to create their own web presence. This would have kept their customer’s close and added value to the relationship.  A new revenue stream could have been created by offering customers the option to purchase an expansion package.  Thereby extending their Yellow Pages branded web page into a tailored business web site . They should have also provided each business listing with an @yellowpages email address (e.g GMail or Hotmail). All this would have driven more business to their customers and added extra value to the Yellow Pages brand. Now, they could have done this in 1995, but let’s say this should have happened by no later than 2002. (By then the writing was well and truly on the wall for the online directories).
• Step 3 should have been to offer the email and personal web page to everyone listed in the White Pages. Again they could have done this in 1995 and it should have been in place by 2002.
• Step 4 should have been to allow business owners to enhance those DIY web sites with front office and back office eCommerce modules. They should also have provided traffic analytics. Plus online credit card and bill payment services. Again these could have been offered on a pay per plugin. This strategy could have been in place in 1998 and should have been in place no later than 2005.
• Step 5 should have been to introduce some type of referral, review or recommendation system into the network. Again this strategy could have been in place in 1998 and should have been in place no later than 2005.
• Step 6 should have been to expand the platform to  include mobile phones messaging and browsing as part of the service. Again this could have been implemented as early as 1995 but let’s say it should have been in place no later than 2005.

What the Yellow Pages could have been today

Today, if they had done all this they would be profiting from an aggregated B2B and B2C transactions network. A “Walled Garden” that would allow them to not only charge for advertising in the directory but also collect fees for any transactions conducted across the directory network.

Buying and Insuring a new car using the new Yellow Pages would be as easy as this...

6 Degrees of Separation, and about 15 years, between being a Market Leader in Printed Directories to being the owner of a very profitable ”Whole of Market” eBusiness Transaction Hub.

Quite simple really. So why didn’t they do this? Good question.

I guess 20th Century Industrial Age strategic thinking and planning techniques just don’t cut it in a MobCon world… Certainly if you are just thinking about building a better search engine or online directory you are thinking about building a more intelligent node. What the Yellow Pages should have been thinking about was building a more intelligent business referral network. After all the network is the database? Right?

Could they still do this today? Of course they could. It would be relatively inexpensive to cobble together and integrate all the bits and pieces. After all, most of the eCommerce and web 2.0 technology required is probably at the “end of life cycle” stage.

The big plus factor of course is the Yellow Pages brand. There is still a lot of Brand Equity here than can be used as leverage with the SMEs and “Joe Public“.

The biggest barrier of course is simply the fact most of the potential customers already have a web site, an email address and an eCommerce solution. So they wouldn’t be able to charge businesses to join the network and they’d probably have to give away all the eCommerce plug-ins away for free as a hook.

They’d be building a B2B Facebook and hoping the Yellow Pages brand is a big enough magnet to draw a crowd.

Perhaps they could charge clients for branding their Yellow Pages web sites but the reality is the offering would look and feel “late to market”. More of a ME2 than an innovative “new to the market” offering. More a case of what should have been rather than a case of what could be.

So I guess they’ll just have to keep those printing presses rolling for a few more years and hope those strategic thinkers and planners can come up with some new and innovative ideas that will provide the Yellow Pages with a “Green” future.

After all, who knows what wonders the mobile web may bring.

To the good stuff:

For you fellow search geeks, Clint Danks from ThinkSEM puts together a great post on Google Analytics cookies and how it effects you. It’s worth the read, twice. I’m still trying to piece it together.

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Often favorite Ed Kohler writes about on how phone books can catch politicians in a residential lie. Johnny Northside provides further input on how politician Lennie Chism didn’t necessarily live at his address while running since rotting phone books were littered on his porch.

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Finally, lets hear it for CWU! They’re ranked #1 going into the 2nd round of the Division II playoffs. Here’s the bracket.

:: :: ::

In a spot on the “Sky Radio and Technology Report”, sponsored by the Yellow Pages Association (YPA), President, Neg Norton, outlines positive changes within the Yellow Pages industry. In addition, he also talks about ways the industry is assisting small businesses to grasp on to the ever-changing advertising choices available to them. If you’re not flying American Airlines in the month of November in order to hear this interview, listen here……

When advertisers make their Print Yellow Pages placement decisions, we realize they need a lot of tools to make the best choices for their business. Usually, several factors come into play to make a wise business decision as to what type of ad to place. Those things might include their budget, competitor advertising, demographic information, directory usage data, coverage of the directory, directories available within a mile radius of a particular site and viewing tear sheets or tear pages of the current book in circulation. We think it’s important that as your marketing partner, we make these tools available.

What we know for sure is that advertisers like to analyze the tear pages of the headings or categories that they advertise in when reviewing their media buys. Here at National Yellow Pages Media, we feel we provide a great service to our clients and help with the environment all at the same time. Some clients have multiple directories that are reviewed at one time and having the capability to view their own ad and those of their competitors provides easy accessibility and convenience. Many of our clients utilize our Tear Pages Online Portal. This not only saves us time and energy in copying a massive amount of paperwork, (we will still provide tear sheets in a paper format for those that request it) but reduces the amount of paper needed to complete the task. Most all directories are available online and can be beneficial in reviewing ad sizes, color ads and competitor advertising. Tear Pages not available online can be ordered and provided also.

This is just one area where we pride ourselves in making the placement decision process easier by offering user friendly resources to help you get the job done.

 In an effort to compete with real-time search results and online customer reviews, the Yellow Pages has decided to go digital, according to a recent article in the Globe and Mail.

I think we can all relate to the tedious task of leafing through the heavy directory in search of a local restaurant, bar or business. It used to take forever, didn’t it?

Compare that with the 2-step process of entering a couple of keywords into Google Maps and clicking through to a website and it’s easy to see why more customers are searching for local listings online.

 But then, why do companies continue to pay to be featured in the Yellow Pages listings? Surprisingly, most of the content for Canadian local listings on Google Maps is supplied directly from the Yellow Pages already, the result of an agreement between the Yellow Pages and Google. When I type in “Bloor West Village Hair Salon” on Google Maps, the results are supplied by the Yellow Pages. I can see where each hair salon is in relation to my home, I can read customer reviews, I can click through to the salons’ websites, and I can also search for a nearby Starbucks in case I want to grab a latte afterward. The Yellow Pages provides the content and Google aggregates it. And because Google is employing AdWords in order to provide the results, I get similar results when I search for both “hair salon” and “beauty salon” (note, the results are similar, but not identical, depending on the keywords that each business has paid to be associated with).  It’s what Yellow Pages CEO Marc Tellier calls “co-opetition” and it allows both the Yellow Pages and Google to continue gaining advertising dollars from local businesses.

It will be interesting to see if the Yellow Pages will extend their “co-opetition” to GPS-based mobile applications like Zagat and Local Eats. That could help narrow results and drive customers further toward purchase.  

- Bethany Cairns

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Cons: Why is the “Party of Lincoln” dominated by the confederate conservative South?
A.There should be a strong federal government. B.Ordinary citizens cannot be trusted with political power. C.Powers not expressly given to the federal government belong to the states. D.The Supreme Court should have federal jurisdiction over the legislative branch. 2.)What was a consequence of the War of 1812? A.a stronger sense of nationalism B.greater isolation from England C.increased attention to states’ rights D.an emphasis on the right to bear arms 3.)What message stated that colonization by European countries in the Americas would not be tolerated? A.the Monroe Doctrine B.the Adams-Onis Treaty C.the South American Accords D.the Northeast Ordinance 4.)Who was the last president from the Revolutionary War era? A.James Monroe B.John Adams C.Andrew Jackson D.Thomas JeffersonI CHOSE A,A,D,A right?

Which statement describes the views of the Federalist Party?
60% of all people living in Indiana are Mormon. It’s a fact. Not too many Moromons in the Western Plains states, but it seems Ohio, Indiana, and the northeast is full of Mormon missionaries. Why is this? Especially Indiana.Hammer Brother-Utah has the lowest percentage of LDS members, it’s a fact.Newell, no it was Gary Indiana.

Why are there so many Mormons in Indiana?
The day started like many others in the month of November in New England, brisk, cool, not yet full on winter, but with the icy touch of december in the air, like a forewarning of the cold to come. I like many others were poor, educated but had no job to speak of, not since the war that is. The reformation, as many were calling it, was a dark time to be living in North America, very uncertain times. Most people felt like an item up for auction who would be sold to the highest bidder and then forced to adopt their lifestyle. Most, the unbelievables , as we called them, accepted this with a worried face and a weary mind but still trudged towards, what they thought, was inevitability. Not us, not the rebels. We were a group devoted to claiming land for their own and starting anew, the biggest problem was foreign forces who were also trying to claim the very same land for the sole purpose of expanding their empires, and was their way of “sticking” it to the country that they claimed, oppressed the world. The mission was simple, take back what was left of what used to be the northeastern U.S. Most of us had fled the cities and moved into more isolated locations in the New England woods. Mostly in what was once New Hampshire and Maine. The onsets of fall was rapidly turning into winter and the majority of us hadn’t yet acquired the necessary provisions to survive a harsh New England winter. Nevertheless our determination would be our source of warmth, for a while at least. When the USA initially began to fall apart the American people thought it would be best to withdraw any troops currently occupying foreign lands and bring them home to protect the extremely corrupt politicians who were the very ones who were bringing the once great nation down. That would have been easy if, the military didn’t turn on them. You see, that was a time of unbridled patriotism among most Americans who felt that what the founding fathers have done should be preserved and a return to Democracy, the way it used to be during the early times of the nation, should be taking place. Most, if not all, of the military felt that way and had simply turned their weapons on the politicians. Not a shot was fired though, until the politicians own elite guardsmen, the secret service, found this act of what they called treason, inexcusable. Since then everything has become all hearsay. Most of the TV networks were seized and ran all government propaganda, to embrace their ideals, to listen to what they had to say, and if not, be tried and executed for treason. radio stations were shut down, and all we had was ourselves and our beliefs, until… Until foreign powers began to invade the weakened country and began to claim land as their own. With no discernible military, most places across the country fell under foreign control. Some places fell faster than others, some places were still yet to fall. The scattered remains of the military dug in at certain locations, but most infantrymen went their own way, and simply fought with their local townsman to fight for their homes and states and protect what they believed was rightly theirs. I was one of those people. This particular part of the continent, the northeast, was occupied by the EU, European Union, mostly comprised of British and Canadian troops, so it seemed only fitting for us to call it the New American Revolution. Other parts of the nation called it something different, something more specifically tailored to their region, but in the end we were all fighting for independence once again. It was clear, that America as we knew it would never be the same. A large group of suburbanites gave into the occupying powers without a fight, these were the unbelievables, and were now considered British citizens, thus enemy civilians to us. I, and many other local people including my brother and a few of my hometown buddies were now holed up in a fortified bunker somewhere in New Hampshire. The weapons we acquired were mostly from dead Canadian troops and some were brought to us by military sympathizers to our cause, and others were merely sold to us from entrepreneurs looking to capitalize off of our conflict. Our location was yet to be discovered by the enemy but it was only a matter of time. Ammunition was low, but our skills were high, and compensated for the lack of the latter.

How’s this for the beginning of a story?
Currently I am a high school senior, I hate living in the South (lived here for 5 years) and I plan on going BACK up North. Living in a Republican run state has actually made me committed to 1. Compensating for this madness by living in a blue state (basically in the Northeast) for 15-20 years and then living in a Blue state for another 30 years of my life 2. Never voting Republican at all. I have seen tons of racism (out loud one too), poverty (everywhere), and tons of bigotry in this red state I live in. There is no diversity and MAN do I have to look real hard to find a good looking Latina or Asian chick BECAUSE HEY I am one of the few Asians in the state I live in. I hate the living in the state I live in so much that I am willing to never vote for the party that runs this state (republicans). Is that a good idea?

Is it good to vote against a party because you lived in a state run by that party?
Recently, I’ve been toying with the idea of moving up to Pennsylvania with my aunt, with parental permission, of course. I have a feeling it would cost less, and it would be easier to get accepted, and on a more personal reason, my aunt lives alone, and I would be there to take care of her. Opinions please? I actually really want to move there, but I know my parents will say no without good reasoning.

I want to go to an out of state college in the Northeast; but I live in South Florida?
Where can I find a responsible AKC breeder in the northeast who will sell me a boxer puppy without its tail docked. My wife refuses to get a dog without its full tail. Popular in Europe, but unable to find in the states.

Where can I find a responsible AKC boxer breeder in the northeast?
what species of plants would work as a local anesthetics in North America, preferably in eastern Canada and the northeast United States.

anesthetic wild plants north america?
- Your vice Presidential Candidate insinuated that people from the Northeast were anti-American. – Your most vocal pundit has declared that we should cut Maine from the United States. – Two candidates for governor of Texas support secession from the Union. And, the current governor has openly stated that it is close to doing it. – Now, in a state where you have 3 of the 29 congressman, many party leaders are supporting the Conservative Party candidate, instead of the Republican. – Now, rank and file members are calling the President of the United States a traitor. What is the point of this strategy? How do you plan to garner votes in states that you don’t think are American?I “dug up” these facts by reading Newspapers. Here are some examples of those stories: Palin, pro America http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/10/17/palin-touts-the-pro-america-areas-of-the-country/ Limbaugh, “saw off Maine” – http://www.pittnews.com/article/2009/10/19/green-snowe-queen Texas secession – http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/topstories/stories/101409dntexsecession.3f3cb13.html New York 23rd – http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/10/family-feud-pits-convervatives-against-republicans-in-ny23-could-infighting-help-democrats.html “filling the White House with Maoists” – is the type of statements I’m talking about.

Can a conservative please explain Republican strategy?
My brother is getting stationed in Okinawa, Japan. Just wondering if I, being on the Northeast coast of the States, could I play PS3 online with him? Or are the servers separated into countries?Alright sounds like you can, cool! Thanks for the answers!

PS3 Online in Japan question?
1)south and northeast 2)west and northeast 3)midwest and northwest 4)west and northwest 5)south and midwest

A while back Brendan posted an article on this blog about the Yellow Pages industry. As you might have deduced from that post, we’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how the reputation-building tools bundled in StepRep can be incorporated into existing online business directories.

If everything goes according to plan, soon customers and advertisers on local “StepRep-powered” Yellow Pages websites will have access to all the features that StepRep users already enjoy:

• Profile pages that display recommendations from customers instead of anonymous (and usually cranky) reviews.
• Search results organized by social context, so customers can see how they’re connected to local businesses through their friends and their friends’ friends.
• One-to-many communications enabling customers to pose an open question to an entire service category.
• Reputation monitoring for businesses to keep track of what their customers are saying about them on other sites.
• StepRep rewards, a success-based advertising model that incentivizes customers to recommend businesses to their friends.

The idea is to restore the Yellow Pages to what they were in the pre-Internet era – the first place you turn to when you need to find a local business. I drew a little comic strip that covers the basics. (Thanks to Tavis and Nicole for modelling for me.)

Woke up this morning and made a phone call on my Motorola Razr cellphone.  I had to use the Yellow Pages to look up the number for Lentz Automotive on Michigan Street.  My Dodge Dynasty broke down last week and was in the repair shop.  I walked to Martha’s Vineyard to get a pack of Marlboro Ultralights and a Vitamin Water.  Then I headed to the Lake Michigan Credit Union on Michigan Street to pull some money out to pay for my car.  I took the Rapid down to Lentz and got my car.  Drove out to campus to get some work done.  All before noon.

This is the first in a series of posts on the future of local media that in the end I will aggregate together to produce a short whitepaper. My goal is to share my thoughts as well as pull together insight from many others into a synthesis or “fuller view” of what the future of local media might look like in 3-5 years time. We will also start to develop a useful blueprint or roadmap for local media. This is an ambitious undertaking for me but one I am determined to tackle.

The impetus for this series of posts comes out of the insights and debate we recently had at The Local Social Summit in London (more on this event later). This along with debate and comments from many other commentators around online media echo similar ideas (For example: Jeff Jarvis | Martin Langeveld | Sebastien Provencher | Greg Sterling and many others that I will link and refer to as we go ). So, I figure its time to pull together my thinking and lay out some predictions.

I am not alone in thinking the next 18-24 months will continue to be very interesting for local media. We will  see more rapid changes to how consumers access local media and lots of evolution on the social side. I also can see a revolution in business models approaching…

Looking Glass Concept - very cool & from Japan

Here’s the initial outline of what the series will cover:

• Background
• Challenges for traditional media companies
• Broadly how online changes the rules
• Features and functions for consumers
• Business models
• Scenarios and Examples
• Summary

By local media I am talking about online digital media that covers local geographic areas usually at the county, city and town level (but is can be as wide a single country if it’s a small one like say Ireland; and it can be smaller all the way down to hyperlocal – ie, a neighborhood). This is the traditional realm in the offline world of local newspaper, the yellow pages, local broadcaster, classifieds, radio and even some magazines. Online we have these same players plus lots of pure plays like Google, Yahoo, Yelp, TrustedPlaces, Qype, Local People, Ireland.com and many others. I should also add that much of what I will discuss is applicable to other online media types and should translate very well for niche and verticals.

I will get more into the challenges for local media in the next post but I want to seed this thread with the concept of how online ‘flattens’ the world for digital media. By flatten I am talking that once online traditional offline players now often compete with everyone and can easily move into new territory. Google of course is an example of this in that they offer news, local listings, maps, video, etc, etc. Another example is a local newspaper can now easily offer local news video content. The offline tradition of a media owner helps define its area of expertise, business model and content but once online this matter less. I am going to call this flattener number 1 “universal competition” – you compete with everyone and anyone can compete with you. Additionally, I see 2 other key trends that flatten the landscape further (1) access to cheap/free publishing tools to anyone – including video; and (2) user control (not just user-generated content.

To summaries my top 3 flattening trends are:

• Universal competition
• Ubiquitous access to publishing tools
• User control

In part 2 – I will outline the challenges I see for local media online.

Using the Internet to Advertise is Imperative

This column first appeared on RimoftheWorld.net on August 31, 2009

My first experience as an entrepreneur dates back to 1974, when my best friend, Lori, and I opened a lemonade stand. Typical, I know. But our approach was not. You see; we lived on a pretty quiet street in Englewood, Colorado. After our first two days in business, we realized that the only regular traffic was the mailman and my father.

Not content to wait for customers to come to us, on day three, Lori and I took a more aggressive approach. We decided to sell lemonade door-to-door. You might be surprised at the relative success of our new strategy. Since this was 35 years ago, admittedly a much simpler time, not only did most people answer the door and take pity on us by forking over 10 cents a glass, most of them probably actually drank the beverages they purchased.

Ever since, I’ve been a staunch proponent for assertively pursuing market share. I guess that’s why I went into advertising. It’s also probably the reason I was so quick to jump on the Internet bandwagon. No matter whether Al Gore helped invent it or not, I believe Cyberspace to be the single most important invention for business since the coffee break.

While it was once necessary to set up a physical shop in order to be taken seriously in business, the “must have for business” in 2009 is an Internet presence. Not yet convinced? Consider the following:

According to the World Internet Usage Statistics website—

• 251,735,500 Americans (73.9% of the population) have access to the Internet.

According to a report released by Nielsen Research—

• Among Internet users in the United States, 94% have shopped online.
• Globally, 875 million people have made at least one online purchase.
• Two-thirds of the world Internet population participates in social networking or blogging sites.

According to an article posted in the April 2009 issue of NZ Business—

• Today more than two thirds of new business enquiries begin online.

Remarkably, at our Lake Arrowhead marketing and public relations’ agency, Mountain Marketing Group, we still spend a considerable amount of time trying to convince our clients that their business success is closely tied to the presence they allow us to help them establish online. And Lake Arrowhead is no Mayberry RFD.

I think the reluctance to embark on an Internet marketing campaign is tied to fear.

• Several wonder about the potential Return on Investment.
• Some worry that they will lose touch with their existing customer-base if they start courting buyers online.
• Many are intimidated by the sheer number of electronic advertising and social networking platforms that are available.
• A few are still waiting, maybe even hoping, that the Internet craze will pass.

With this column, I hope to alleviate these fears by shedding light on how easy, effective, and necessary it is for business owners and non-profit directors to get busy online. Not just for beginners, we’ll also highlight industry tips and trends designed to improve Internet performance for seasoned Internet pros.

This week, let me assure you that, like it or not, the Internet is here to stay. So why not embrace it? Learn about it? Exploit it? If the thought of setting up your own website is daunting, consider taking advantage of the plethora of free platforms waiting for you to enter a unique username and password. Even if you’ve hosted your own interactive website for years, these sites offer valuable back link opportunities, which drive Search Engine Optimization. We’ll cover back links and SEO in the weeks ahead.

Far less time-consuming to create than an original website or even a blog, these free directory listings help define your organization’s online persona because they are credible, established accounts. So even new businesses and non-profits included on them are immune from what’s known as the Google Sandbox, an otherwise unavoidable waiting period every new site must endure before Meta Crawlers recognize their existence on the Internet.

There are dozens of available free, directory sites. But these are the ones I recommend:

Google Directory

MerchantCircle

Rim of the World

Wikipedia AboutUs.org

Yellow Pages.com

Invest a little time online today to list your company, business service or non-profit in the free directories, above. As some unaccredited author once wrote, “A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.”

Until next week, I’ll be Bowling for Business