Josh's Thoughts

OK. I admit it. I was really curious so I decided to google the name of the company I work for. Normally, you’d expect to see your company at the top of the list as long as you own your domain name. We do, and our site is at the top of the list. The thing is, there are these guys in the UK right beneath us. I wonder how many calls the other “eastmedia” gets regarding Ruby on Rails work from clients who think they’re contacting the real EastMedia?

It’s not a big deal, but we all know that Google (I’m not even going to link there because EVERYONE knows where it is) is how people get where they think they want to go on the Web. If you don’t believe me, check your site’s site analytics and go to referrers. You’ll notice that Google is likely a top referrer, and if you click on it you’ll probably see a breakdown of search terms used to access your site. Of course this depends on:

1. You actually having a site
2. That site having analytics (Go to analytics.google.com if you don’t. It’s free.)
3. That your analytics provider actually uses terms like referrer and gives a list of keywords when you click on it.

I figure that if #’s 1 and 2 apply you probably know how to find 3, so forgive the lack of detailed instructions. Anyway, if you can find the keywords, you’ll notice that your domain name and variations of it are right at the top. They probably make up a significant portion of your organic traffic. Unless you’ve been paying some serious attention to search engine optimization, it’s unlikely that your products and services come first. Note: This is actually a broad generalization based on the assumption that your site’s name is better branded than the products/services/content it provides, but I don’t care because this is my site and I get to make broad sweeping generalizations based on assumptions.

Enough digression. Let me get to the point I was trying to make about Google being how people get to where they think they want to go on the Web. If you look at the keywords closely you’re likely to notice that www.example.com or example.com, where “example” is your domain, are at the top. You might think this is a little odd, especially if you’re someone who works with technology or is really familiar with the Web. You might even be asking yourself, “why would anyone type a URL into Google when that’s what the browser’s address bar is for?”

Drum roll please!

The reason for this odd behavior is because many people, even in this day of Web 2.0, use their search engine of choice (in many cases the default one provided by the browser or service provider) IS the Internet. Hence the genius behind Microsoft making MSN the default home page of IE or Mozilla making the default home page of Firefox their revenue generating access point into Google search. That’s right. People type in full domain names into their search engine and then click the link that comes up first. Just another reason for all those technology folks out there to always remember that you are NOT your user. It also might shed some light on why the best paid search placement is at the top not in the right column. Oh yea, you also might want to consider that some of the best SEO you do might be in offline marketing with your Brand Manager.

As an aside, all you technology folks or experienced Web folks who read this post. Please accept my apology for writing a long post about something most of you probably already know. It wasn’t meant for you.

From the better late than never category comes my take on Facebook apps.

The idea was genius. The implementation is pretty damn good. Most of the apps suck. A few of them like Scrabulous are absolutely rockstars. They can provide companies with a ton of traffic. I think I recall seeing Iamfreetonight.com, a somewhat bootleg ad-driven online personals site owned by the folks behind 2 of the most irritating but genius apps on Facebook, either in an blog article or on Alexa’s Movers and Shakers index a week ago. I also happen to know that successful Facebook apps can take a surprising amount of bandwidth.

My personal favorite involves a battle that has around since the beginning of time: Pirates vs. Ninjas. Pirates don’t stand a chance against Ninjas in a fight, but I’ll concede that they probably have more fun if getting drunk, not bathing, and having scurvy is fun.

Pretty cool. It must have been an amazing experience. I love the comment by music director Lorin Maazel about the absence of Kim Jong Il. “I have yet to see the president of the United States at one of my concerts. Sometimes a statesman is too busy.”

Check out the article on the Washington Post

Those who know me well know that I truly enjoy politics for the entertainment value alone. This election year in particular has sparked my interest more than any other.

Some political rants:

• Please stop blaming the state of the economy on President Bush. If you blame him for the bad, I’ll have to thank him for the boom of Web 2.0, and we all know the government had nothing to do with it.
• File under future reference: In the case you elect war mongering idiots, blame yourself then don’t reelect them. Remember the fool me twice quote? It applies.
• It would be nice if the government didn’t want to be involved in monitoring our personal lives or increasing our taxes. It would also be nice if they realized that there are people in this country who need help and that those people can’t afford lobbyists. Neither of the two major parties does either well.
• Is there someone out there willing to run for office who actually understand technology and the important issues at stake regarding the future of information distribution? Is there even an assistant, aide, or secretary who has a twenty-something kid who can explain some of this stuff to someone important? Remember “knowledge is power“. It would be nice if the government had some.
• Hillary just referred to the “YouTubes” in a televised debate with Barack Obama. Look people there are no “tubes”. The Internet is not Raging Waters.
• A fence across the border with Mexico is a stupid idea. It will cost a fortune, be completely mismanaged, and not work. America is not China attempting to protect itself from the Mongol horde. In Boston they couldn’t even dig a hole correctly. It is inconceivable that a fence would do anything other than cost this country money that we don’t really have.

There. My political rants are complete. That wasn’t too bad, was it?

Caught this on engadget. Nokia in partnership with the University of Cambridge is displaying a “nanotechnology-equipped concept mobile device” called “The Morph” at MoMA as part of the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition from Feb. 24th until May 12th. Pretty sweet idea. It’s nice to see some experiments with new technology that might actually be fun and stain resistant. The development of concepts like this remind me how much fun it can be to be an interaction designer. Enough with wireframes and process flow diagrams. Bring on the transforming nanotechnology!

Morph on YouTube cause YouTube is sweetness.

Courtesy of Dictionary.com is defined as:

–verb (used without object)

I use my iPhone as my alarm clock, and every morning I push the snooze button at least twice. I’ve been doing this since last July, and every morning the word snooze strikes me as being oddly misspelled. It’s as if I acquire dyslexia every morning. When I see the word snooze it registers in misspelled variations like schnooze, snuze, smooze, and shmooze. I mentioned it to a colleague about fifteen minutes ago and he expressed that experiences the identical phenomena on a daily basis. My question is: Is Apple playing tricks on me?

Oh yeah, and why can’t I change the snooze duration on my iPhone?

Another “oh yeah”, no more naps for me. I don’t want a stroke.

So I wonder – can the combination of 2 companies who have independently been beaten like rented mules by Google really compete in search?

The combination would give Microhoo! approximately 30% of the U.S. online search market vs. approximately 65% for Google. Microsoft is arguing that the combination would make the market more competitive. This is an interesting point. Obviously, if done correctly, it would make Microsoft more competitive in search and instant messaging (second to AOL) and a market leader in online advertising and web-based email (Y! mail is already #1). The thing is, I’m not really sure if merging the #2 and #3 search companies makes the market more competitive. I guess what I’m missing is – more competitive for whom?

Search advertising may become more competitive for advertisers by providing a viable alternative to Google, but I’ve never heard of anyone complaining about the cost of advertising with Google unless they have crappy landing pages, irrelevant products, or poor choice of Adwords. Not to mention that anyone seriously advertising their products using paid placement is probably already advertising on Yahoo, MSN and Ask (or at least Yahoo). The other possibility is a chance for reduced ad inventory (depending on how Yahoo and MSN online properties are combined) and increased cost to advertisers (caused by competition for reduced prime real estate), especially as Microsoft attempts to absorb the purchase.

All of that said, this kind of analysis is not my expertise, in my realm of experience, or something that I’ve put in any time researching. The thing about the purchase that stuck out in my mind was the part about competition. If I remember correctly, Google’s success happened during the .com bust, not the boom. Google came out of left field (for consumers) and slaughtered search companies like AltaVista, Yahoo/Overture, etc. Yahoo was around doing indexes and search before Google. Google spanked them like whiny little babies. All this time Yahoo search was getting spanked, MS was tripping over it’s own feet. Basically, Google has already beaten the competition including the two companies everyone is talking about.

Yahoo and Microsoft employ some ridiculously smart people. Many of those people are ridiculously smarter than I am, so it is well within the realm of possibility that they pose a risk to Google’s search dominance in the U.S. That is if they ever really REALLY wrap their heads around what makes Google’s search so powerful.

It seems to me that Google has beaten back all competitors because they did something relatively new. They focused their search on helping users leave Google as quickly as possible hoping that the faster people found what they wanted, the more likely they were to return.

The problem for Microhoo is that Yahoo and Microsoft have never been good at sending people away.