Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Friday Funny” plus 2 more

Friday Funny
De.licio.us Bookmarked for Closing
Google Includes Display in Renewed MySpace Contract

Posted: 17 Dec 2010 05:34 AM PST

I suspect I will be tagged as being ‘late to the game’ but I was just introduced to Geek Culture‘s Joy of Tech cartoon by the folks at All Things Digital in their Voices section. Hmmm, I guess that also says I should pay closer attention there as well since this is a regular feature and looks pretty cool but, hey, there’s only so many hours in a digital day, right?

For your Friday entertainment here’s a take on the Facebook World we live in.

By the way, I concur completely with the Angry Birds reference. Those little pigs are so smug.

Have a great weekend!

De.licio.us Bookmarked for Closing

Posted: 17 Dec 2010 04:26 AM PST

It appears as if one of the most popular social bookmarking sites (and pretty strong brand name amongst certain circles) has been marked for what Yahoo calls being 'sunset'. In other words, it will be riding off into the sunset and sent to the glue factory. Never heard that one? OK, I'll say it in simpler terms. It's being shut down.

The slide below was displayed over at TechCrunch and shows other Yahoo properties targeted for sunset-land including Yahoo Bookmarks, Yahoo Buzz, AltaVista, MyBlogLog and a few more..

An update to the TC post pretty much put the final nail in the rumor and turned it into 'fact'.

AllThingsD's Liz Gannes is reporting that the products will be in fact shut down and that the slide does in fact originate from an all hands meeting at Yahoo, following yesterday's layoffs. As if we needed more proof, Yahoo Product Manager Blake Irving has threatened to fire whomever leaked the slide.

The official response from Yahoo:

"Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond.

We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo! Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate."

For the few of you unaware this is PR speak for, "We confirm."

What I find most fascinating about this entire thing has little to do with what is or is not being closed down. Rather it's this Wikileaks like culture that exists in the Internet / tech industry. Things that are obviously intended for internal use to convey information to people who are on a 'need to know' basis are just as likely to end up on TechCrunch as they are in a VP's office at the company.

Yahoo is a publically traded company that has investors who could lose a lot of money if any of these leaks lead to further activity that negatively impacts the shareholder value. There are any number of consequences that could result from this kind of internal planning being made public but people don't seem to care.

I have read others who have broached this subject and they talk about honor, class and integrity. It appears as if these qualities are in shorter supply than ever at companies these days. We are not talking about government secrets that get everyone in a tizzy about what was or wasn't shared, what should or shouldn't be shared and if there are lives in the balance. On some level, those actions can be justified to some degree (Note: I am not the least bit interested in debating the whole Wikileaks thing. It's not anything that needs to be done in this forum. I'm just citing the example.)

As for employees (who are paid by a company for their services, which are to help the company grow regardless of whether it can really be done or not), letting these sensitive 'documents' out into the wild? I think it shows an extremely low level of class and a complete lack of integrity.

I mean honestly, other than to hurt the company and endear yourself to the tech media, what is the purpose of giving this information to outsiders? It's all for personal gain and it does nothing but create the potential for greater harm to those who are actually trying to work to help the company succeed (even if those efforts appear to be very misguided). I think it's pretty pathetic.

Look, I am not perfect. When I worked at bigger companies I could be found engaging in water cooler talk that was questioning or wondering what in the world was going on. I am not claiming piety here. But one thing I would have never considered was giving company data to outsiders. That's just short-sighted, ignorant and mean-spirited, in my opinion.

But anyway, for today I am part of the machine that uses the information that has been passed along. Maybe I am just as guilty as the next guy on this one by sharing it further. That's one I'll have to work on myself now, isn't it?

Google Includes Display in Renewed MySpace Contract

Posted: 16 Dec 2010 04:36 PM PST

MySpace and Google Inc. will continue doing business together under a long-term deal that includes the Google Display Network for the first time ever.

Nada Stirratt, MySpace Chief Revenue Officer, has been widely quoted as saying,

“We look forward to participating in the Google Display Network and DoubleClick Ad Exchange to increase yield across our display ad inventory.”

I’m sure it’s true. MySpace has been running down a rocky road of late and parent company, News Corp, is getting tired of waiting for the profits to roll in. A little over a month ago, News Corp president Chase Carey said that MySpace needed to start showing improvement over the next few quarters, not years. Certainly, keeping Google on board, and joining the display ad network will help, but it’s not the key to saving the floundering social site.

Google has been the house search engine since 2006, but the original deal had Google paying out hefty guarantees in return for little on MySpace’s part. Though the details haven’t been confirmed, the rumor is that this new deal will have no such guarantee. If MySpace wants the search paycheck, they’re going to have to work hard for it like everyone else.

Trouble is, in order to get people to search, MySpace has to get people on site and that’s not happening. Their recent attempts at turning the site into social media community for entertainment lovers haven’t done much to increase traffic or the site’s reputation.

Can anyone save MySpace? Google may be a search superhero but I doubt even they have the power to breath new life into this old space.