Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Facebook Wants Everyone to Answer Your Questions” plus 4 more

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• Facebook Wants Everyone to Answer Your Questions
• Suing Google is So 2010; the Cool Kids are Suing Groupon Now
• Wall Street Journal Tests Single Issue Downloads
• Facebook Tests Real-Time Ads
• Yahoo Search Predicted to Decline Further

Facebook Wants Everyone to Answer Your Questions Posted: 25 Mar 2011 06:26 AM PDT Facebook is now trying to facilitate more business related activity through its soon to be widespread Questions offering. The idea of Questions is not exclusively for businesses, since you can ask any type of question through the feature, but it’s obvious that Facebook is looking to facilitate more conversations that promote businesses because then it becomes easier to integrate Facebook Places and then, ummm let me think, oh yea, advertising. From the Facebook blog Friends are often the best source of advice when you’re trying new things: Where should I go to dinner? How do I go buy a car? What new music should I check out? Friends know your tastes, and you have confidence in their opinions. Like many of our products, Questions originated as people began using Facebook in a new and unexpected way. People would update their status with a question, and their friends would answer in the comments. We saw this and began thinking about how we could make this interaction more useful. Over the summer, we began testing Questions with a small group of people, and today we are beginning to roll it out to everyone. Here is what a Question page may look like when asking the question of your friends about their favorite restaurant. Here, however, is where I always feel that Facebook is crossing the line and making it actually harder for some people to use their features. The blog describes the following 'opportunity' for users. Questions will also enable you to cast a wider net. Now, when your friends answer one of your questions, their friends can answer it too. For more unusual questions, you can get advice from a broader group of people, but to keep it most relevant we filter the answers to show you first what your friends think. You can see more responses by clicking “others” within the question. Personally, I don't want to cast a wider net and I suspect that not everyone does either. Honestly, I have about the average number of 'friends' on Facebook. How many of those are really friends that I interact with? A small percentage. So my thinking is that if I don't even have a real relationship with the vast majority of my 'closest' Facebook friends why would I be interested in getting recommendations from even less familiar 'friends of friends'? My question is what kind of ‘friending’ can of worms do you open up when you cast this net? Knowing Facebook there will be some kind of unannounced result of doing this that people will discover the hard way. i guess I should be happy that at least they haven’t made this sharing with others mandatory…..yet. Silicon Valley's obsession with sharing everything with everyone regardless of your relationship with them has little to do with social. It's all about capital. The more people 'interact' the better it is for advertising. But for the actual users? Letting everyone know everything starts to visit Creepytown pretty quickly. It used to be that you shouldn't talk to strangers now it's "Don't' worry, we're all friends!". Hey Silicon Valley types. The rest of the world may not actually want to be as chummy as you think. Just look at some of the reaction yesterday to the Color photo sharing product. For every person thinking this is the future there are an equal amount saying that it's nuts to share everything with strangers. Of course, this is just my opinion and all of these products and decisions will be driven by dollar based thinking with the PR front of 'connecting the world'. Be honest, Facebook, what you want to really connect is our wallets to your bank account. Just say it. It's cool. We understand. So what's your feeling about the potential to share with people you have never met and may never even want to meet? Is that a good thing or am I just whining? Go ahead and tell me. I can take it . Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Suing Google is So 2010; the Cool Kids are Suing Groupon Now Posted: 25 Mar 2011 04:35 AM PDT Look, just because a competitor outbids you on Google AdWords, that does not mean you can file a lawsuit against them. OK, so that advertiser didn’t actually have any of the products it was advertising, you still can’t claim the ads were misleading. What’s that? The advertiser is Groupon and if you sue them you might get some easy publicity? Have at it, son! Honestly, that’s the only reason I can think of that a San Francisco tour company is suing the discount coupon company over its ”false and misleading business and advertising acts.” According to the lawsuit (via LA Times), Beginning in about September of 2010, Plaintiff (San Francisco Comprehensive Tours) observed that the cost of its click-throughs began to skyrocket, and its ranking in the purchased placement area for searches including the terms “San Francisco Tours,” “Alcatraz Tours,” and “Napa Wine Tours” began to decline. At the same time, defendant Groupon’s AdWords link began to appear at or near the top of purchased placement search results for Google searches including the terms “San Francisco Tours,” “Alcatraz Tours,” and “Napa Wine Tours” The complaint goes on to say that Groupon has only ever offered one coupon that comes close to the keywords it was bidding on in AdWords. I’m no legal-eagle, but where’s the harm? The searcher clicks through, sees there’s no actual offer, and hits the back-button. The San Francisco tour operator ultimately gets the business and Groupon just looks stupid for bidding on something it doesn’t offer–kind of like when eBay bids on things like “get used diapers at eBay.com.” What will be the outcome? I have no idea. I suspect this is just a publicity stunt–and it’s working–but I do like the suggestion that one commenter made over at the LA Times: If they get 1000 people to sign on for a class action, they get 50% off legal fees! Nice!

Wall Street Journal Tests Single Issue Downloads Posted: 24 Mar 2011 12:36 PM PDT Remember when delivering the daily paper was the responsibility of a neighbor kid on a Schwinn bike? We not only paid to have that wad of knowledge slap down on our doorsteps every morning, we even happily tipped the boy when he came to collect the fee every week. Ah, the good old days. Now people balk when you ask them to spend cold, hard cash to have that very same paper delivered instantly to their mobile device. Yes, the same people who will spend hundreds of real dollars to keep up a virtual farm, balk at the idea of spending $18 to read the news. Amazing, isn’t it? The Wall Street Journal is out to change the way those people think by offering individual issue downloads on the iPad for only $1.99. The idea, of course, is that once you sample the full product, you’ll no longer be happy with the watered-down free version. It works in mall food courts, so why not on the iPad? Here’s why not. The Wall Street Journal and soon the New York Times and every other paper considering a paywall have to prove to the public that by paying, they’ll get something they can’t get anywhere else. That’s a tough sell and not just because people are used to getting things free on the internet. It’s the “news” portion of selling the news that hurts. News isn’t proprietary. I don’t need the New York Times to know what’s happening in Japan. I can go to CNN or Huffington Post or Twitter even. In order to get customers to pay for news, a paper has to demonstrate a special knack for better commentary, exclusive sources, or the ability to break news faster than the competitor. People will pay to access online content. The adult biz has thrived on paywalls for many, many years. But it seems like a niche paper such as the Civil War Bayonet Collector’s Gazette would have an easier time selling digital subscriptions than a major newspaper, because it truly does contain information you can’t find anywhere else. What do you think about the idea of selling single-issue downloads? Is it the path to conversion, an extra revenue stream, or another useless shot at getting people to pay for the cow when the milk is already free?

Facebook Tests Real-Time Ads Posted: 24 Mar 2011 11:13 AM PDT It’s been cold and rainy here in Southern California. I sure could use some soup for lunch! If I was part of Facebook’s new test group, the next ad I’d see shortly after posting that status update might be the one you see here. And by shortly, I don’t mean later that day, but within seconds. The test Facebook is conducting is to see if they can deliver targeted ads in real-time based on wall posts and status updates. Right now, ads are targeted based on a number of criteria including posts, interests and other information in a person’s profile. But those ads, relevant though they may be (and they aren’t always relevant) take time to show up on site. With the current set-up, that soup ad could show up four days after I express my interest in soup and by then we could have gone from parkas to bathing suits here in the OC. Let’s face it, we’re a fickle audience, prone to impulse buying when something is new and exciting. If advertisers can tap into that instant gratification reflex, then they’ve got a better chance of selling you an item you probably won’t want a week from now. The only downside here is, as usual, one of customer privacy. People don’t like the idea of their wall posts being read by strangers, even if they are posting in a public space. People who notice that their ads have suddenly become very targeted, to the creepy degree, may balk at the intrusion. It probably won’t stop them from clicking on something they like, but they’ll complain anyway. A few marketers have expressed concerns about ads showing up that haven’t been properly vetted. For example, can the system tell the difference between a positive and negative update? If I say, I just got seasick on a cruise, will I get served ads for a boat trip around the world? The bigger question — does it matter? What’s the worst that could happen if an ad is badly targeted? The user won’t click. That’s not helpful to the advertiser but it’s not a Groupon ad about Tibet, right? Anything that helps put a relevant ad in front of potential consumer while that item is on their mind, can’t be anything but helpful for marketers. So go, Facebook, go.

Yahoo Search Predicted to Decline Further Posted: 24 Mar 2011 08:31 AM PDT Well, that didn't take long. Yesterday we get news that Yahoo is really looking to improve its search experience. Good news, right? Well, eMarketer isn't going to let Yahoo get off that easily as it released numbers predicting a continued decline in Yahoo search ad revenue share (mainly due to Bing's gains). Those gains by Bing are slowly happening but perhaps the bigger surprise is the predicted rise in Google search ad revenue share. Here it is. Are you agreement with these numbers? Will Google become even more dominant as Yahoo fades off in to the sunset and Bing picks up the pieces? How will this play out? Let's hear your predictions in the comments.

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