It’s no secret that Android phones will soon be flooding the market. The latest product in this category is the myTouch phone from T-Mobile.

From the looks of their commercial, it seems like a solid product and another entrant in the long line of supposedly serious iPhone competitors.

However, what is their target audience? I assumed that since I’d been seeing these commercials a lot (no matter what program I was watching) that I was within the target demo. But then again, look at who’s in the commercials.

Whoopi Goldberg, for one. As far as I’m concerned, the last time she was relevant was when she was in the movie Ghost. But now she’s hosting The View, which is for older women.

Phil Jackson is also in this commercial. Former Chicago Bulls coach and current LA Lakers head coach. Are viewers who aren’t basketball fans supposed to know who he is?

And the last person in this ad is Jesse James from the show West Coast Choppers. I don’t watch the show, but I assume the audience is mostly male. I didn’t even recognize him in the commercial. I actually thought it was Fred Durst.

And the commercial is set to song by (the artist formerly known as) Cat Stevens. So obviously, they’re trying to target an older audience… who is both female and male… who watches basketball, TV shows about building bikes, and The View.

The other major point of the commercial is that customization is the key feature of the phone. While that’s all well and great for young people who like to have individualized everythings, I don’t think adults particularly care for a cartoon vampire caricature of themselves on the back of their phone.

But hey, maybe when I grow up some more that’s what I’ll want.

This is what happens when you want to copy/paste part of an AP article:

I swear, the Associated Press has no idea how the Internet works.

I know that other people hosting AP stories hurts the company’s bottom line (in terms of ad revenue), but this is just ridiculous. I don’t even know where to start with this.

They think people will pay $12.50 to quote up to 25 words from an AP article? The price for the same verbiage drops down to $7.50 for those using it for educational purposes.

What’s next? Are they going to start adding all their articles to a robots.txt file so Google News won’t index them?

Lack of exposure (or publicity) is what hurts news organizations the most. AP sure isn’t going to recoup all of their lost revenue by charging by the word.

If they do, then I’ll eat my shoe.

Link: The Time Has Come To Regulate Search Engine Marketing And SEO

Here’s a quote from the article that speaks volumes to me (with my emphasis).

“Here’s where the parallel to free trade breaks down. There are no perfect paradigms looking at free trade and import/export laws that exactly define or address this challenge.”

And now my thoughts regarding the rest of the article:

1) I believe that the article is most definitely written by an employee of a competing search engine challenging the Google model.

Google is the gold standard of online search, which means they are and have been doing something right. If users didn’t find results to be consistent and relevant, then Google would not be as dominant as it is. This may come off as common sense statement, but I think a lot of users just take it for granted that Google exists and is as powerful as it is.

2) It’s true that the Internet marketplace is incredibly saturated. And unlike the real world, where people choose a store based on location, personalized customer service, and visual appeal, the Internet doesn’t work that way. Google will tell you which sites are the most relevant based on what your keywords say you’re looking for. The overlap between Internet and real-world shopping is word-of-mouth. Where the Internet trumps real life is that word-of-mouth travels at lightspeed over the Net. Think about how many times customer service horror stories have made their rounds on the Web. The Internet is both the best tool for PR and its worst enemy.

3) Google is not the be-all and end-all of online commerce. Certain specialty “watchdog” sites that compare products, prices and merchants (the latter two of which Google has a market share) via user reviews are really where experienced buyers will look to first. Seasoned Internet shoppers know how to find the best prices for goods, the best sites for individual product reviews, and ratings for online stores. I feel that the author of the article underestimates the ingenuity of the Internet populace.

4) Wikipedia probably has the best model of collaborative effort on the Web. But how would you apply this paradigm to the search industry? First and foremost, you would need community moderation- the staple of Wikipedia. You would need people willing to spend their time in order to improve results, eliminate biases, and ultimately convey the “truth” behind the SEO smoke and SEM mirrors. I am certain that Google believes that those they employ can do a better job than the combined efforts of the Internet community. And who can blame them? Look how far their trust has brought the company.

5) Google pretty much singlehandedly drives the SEO/SEM industry. The ever-changing and evolving secret algorithm keeps these marketing and optimization companies in business while also helping to prevent abuse.

I interned for a successful search marketing agency, and I can tell you that results can be delivered for new companies without using black-hat tactics. It takes hard work and real insight (which is why so many companies outsource).

And here’s one of the most important lessons I learned while working there: You have to believe in your clients. If you don’t, then your chances of improving pagerank will certainly diminish. On the other hand, if your clients believe in their goods and/or service and your SEO/SEM company informs them of changes they should make to improve both content and User Experience, then you’re already many steps ahead of the competition.

6) Google does not police the Internet. Google polices its own service. The article’s main analogy is flawed in that it doesn’t consider other continents. I suppose comparing Google to a country is more apt. The country imposes its own laws on its citizens the same way Google moderates search results. And there are smaller continents with their own sets of rules for those who don’t wish to become citizens of Google. Google is not a monopoly. Of course, it would be ignorant to state that Google is not a huge factor in online business success, but there is definitely room for improvement. Do you think Microsoft would sink upward of $100 million into Bing had they not done their market research? If Google doesn’t give the people the kind of search engine they want, then there is definitely room for another company to develop one. Bing offers a somewhat fresh search model based on their own laws. But only time will tell how big and powerful Bing country becomes.

7) Google is not a malicious dictatorship. I firmly believe that both profit and user experience are equal drivers of development and innovation for their products. It’s true that Google will pull site listings that are, for lack of a better word, ‘fishy.’ SEO/SEM veterans have warned me about how to avoid angering Google moderators, but have also told me about how Google can be merciful. There exists an appeals system and Google will consider reviewing your infraction. You just have to make a case that you’re above using sneaky methods and that you really deserve a spot on Google.

That last part is so important that I’ll repeat it: You have to make a case that you deserve a spot on Google. The search spiders and Ad buying will only take you so far. User behavior will let Google know which sites people like the most and how accurate meta descriptions and keywords really are.

At the end of the day, it’s the users who have the most power, and not a single search engine.

Link: 5 Corporate Promotions That Ended in (Predictable) Disaster

Proof that hindsight really is 20/20.

“Everybody here is on a 24 hour news cycle.”

The above quote is from President Obama at a recent press conference where a reporter attempted to pressure the Commander-in-chief into speculating about how the United States would respond to violence against Iranian protesters. The president refused to be coaxed into making a statement for the sole use of being a soundbyte.

The press conference (and Obama’s response) both highlight the current collective mindset of the news industry. With the advent of widespread knowledge-sharing technologies such as the Internet and cell phones, news is now more a competition than ever before. News outlets battle to be the first to break a story. People no longer wait for 10 o’clock to find out what’s going on in the world. News websites have live feeds that automatically refresh, bringing people the latest headlines from around the world.

How far we’ve come! Of course, we’re the most knowledgeable generation that ever existed. We’re learning things at a far quicker rate. But competition and incompetency can sometimes be strange bedfellows.

Case 1: WWE + Donald Trump

For instance, consider Vince McMahon’s recent World Wrestling Entertainment debacle. In a storyline (read: fake) twist, McMahon sold a large portion of the company to billionaire rival Donald Trump. The Donald, a good friend of McMahon, made an appearance on WWE’s show Monday Night Raw to announce the ‘purchase.’ Fiction is fiction, right? Not according to major news organizations. USA Today and others reported the storyline as news, which in turn sent WWE stock plummeting 6.7 percent.

How could nobody have done their homework? Professional wrestling is known for living in a kayfabe world, meaning storylines aren’t real! (See also: Vince McMahon dies in a limo explosion) Are we to believe that news journalists are as susceptible to trickery as prepubescent kids? Sadly, yes.

Case 2: Michael Jackson’s Death + Twitter

The world lost a pop icon yesterday when Michael Jackson passed away. In what is probably the biggest story of the year so far, news spread like wildfire. The problem? The real and the fake travel hand-in-hand at lightspeed.

Twitter users were tweeting nonstop with status updates on Jackson. Users spread ‘news’ that he was in a coma, that he was still alive in the hospital, and even that he was dead (before it was even announced!). In fact, I’ve never seen so many people cite TMZ as a reputable source. TMZ?! Seriously? Harvey Levin’s paparazzi-driven gossip site is now where people get news? TMZ broke the ‘news’ that Jackson died before even CNN. That, to me, begs the question: does anybody know if TMZ even verified their information? How does anybody know whether or not they were just taking a shot in the dark? Lucky for them, they got it right. And if they were wrong, so what? It’s just TMZ is what people would say. So TMZ gets the spotlight of being the first to ‘break’ the story and they were only able to do so because they lack journalistic integrity more so than major organizations. Does this make sense to anyone?

And to even further the point, Twitterers were also spreading false rumors that Jeff Goldblum had died in New Zealand. It was based on a website with a fake death article generator that had been used before to dupe the masses. But this time, news outlets picked up on the story. Jeff Goldblum became a Twitter trend to the point where Kevin Spacey tweeted, “Jeff Goldblum is alive and well. I just spoke to his manager. Stop these stupid rumors.”

Who can we trust to bring us news? Strangely enough, this is related to the recent blog I wrote about crowdsourcing. I’m willing to speculate that at least 90 percent of the people who found out about Jackson’s death within the first six hours did so by means of person-to-person contact. That is, being told by a friend, reading about it on Twitter, Facebook statuses, text messages, etc. Isn’t this just a form of crowdsourcing the news? If this is how we spread information now, then realistically, news outlets like CNN only need a Twitter page and/or live feed. Everyone will be able to pool together stories from different sources and eventually they’ll all find out what they need to know. Is this how the news industry is going to work?

And finally, just because I think it’s such an awesome quote, here’s the full version:

“I know everybody here is on a 24 hour news cycle. I’m not.”

-President Barack Obama