The Free Credit Report ads have caused such user confusion in the marketplace that the government has felt the need to create a spoof site with $100,000 worth of amateur video to mock Free Credit Report.com. And yet even if you search for the official website [Annual Credit Report] to this very day Google is cashing in showing 3 PPC ads ABOVE the organic search results for that NAVIGATIONAL search query...sorta like how they were cashing in on eBay's brand recently.

For [Annual Credit Report] the government has stepped in and said what is right for the consumer. But the Google AdWords team has different ideas. "Increasing user choice" means the official site at best ranks #4.

It doesn't matter if you are a white knight SEO. This free credit report link doesn't matter if Google is going to put scammy AdWords ads at the top of the search results where most searchers think those are the most important results.

Google is cashing in on searcher ignorance and misplaced trust, at least while they can - just like other scammers pushing reverse billing fraud would do.

Search competition is important, because without it, consumers lose out on choice. You can see the absurdity of Google's position when /> [...]

Thu Nov 12, 2009 18:28 pm

I have been in talks with a few companies lately about their social media efforts especially when it comes to supporting customers using social media (the topic of my new book). And I have noticed a difference between the successful ones and the not so successful ones.

It comes down to one basic organizational difference …

At the highest level there is really 2 ways to organize your social media efforts: Centralized or Decentralized. Do you have a team that is very loosely coupled with no clear leader that coordinates your social activity and it feels strained or hard to hold together? Or do you have one team with one goal with many players all connected together under the leadership on one person – what I call the Social Media lightening rod.

You can tell the difference very easily in a meeting or in my case with a meeting at a client because as soon as someone mentions social they all say you need to speak to Person X.

Having seen a number of teams at various companies over the last few months it’s clear that social has made some big strides at even the most obscure companies. Many of which have virtual teams of folks who are interested in social media and are happy to help the cause at their company. But the big difference between them and more successful ones at social media is the lightening rod.

Most often I see there is a person who could emerge as the lightening rod but just hasn’t been given the authority or stepped up and assumed the role. If this is you (and you know who you are) my question for you is what’s holding you back? You know you want to do this and your company needs you to do this. So stop holding yourself back and just do it!

There are many ways to market your business through Facebook. Some are obvious, and others not so much. One thing you can pretty much count on is that there are incredible masses of people on the social network that you can potentially reach, and in ways that will allow them not only to engage with your brand in a comfortable setting, but with other Facebook ecosystems they are already engaging with.

A perfect example of this was recently demonstrated by Microsoft in one of the company's many marketing strategies for its "decision engine" Bing. I sat in on a Bing panel this week at SXSW, where some of Bing's marketers talked about a variety of ways they have used social media to gain users. One of these ways was through none other than Farmville (if you're a Facebook user, and don't live under a rock, you've at least heard of it).

More people use Farmville than Twitter, according to Bing, and People are sharing all kinds of activities within Farmville itself. That's why the company saw a great opportunity to experiment. What they did was offer a special offer inside of Farmville, that would give users free "farm cash" if they became a fan of Bing on Facebook, which would encourage continued user interaction with Bing. As a result:

- Over 72% of users who clicked on the engagement became fans
- 59,000 people published the story to their news feed
- Over 70,000 clicks were received on secondary feeds
- In 24hours, Bing had over 400,000 new fans to keep

Microsoft said its goals for engagement and social media efforts have been to:

- Add or create relevant value (stuff that's not even necessarily a Microsoft property)

- Add depth to Bing's personality
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Thu Mar 18, 2010 14:50 pm

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Yahoo, Adobe Identified As Victims Of China Hack

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When Google made its big announcement about an attack originating from China, the company also mentioned that "at least twenty other large companies" had been affected.  Now, it's become almost certain that one of them was Adobe, and there are signs that Yahoo was another target.

Adobe's status as a victim became more or less official when a post appeared on a corporate blog.  The post stated, "Adobe became aware on January 2, 2010 of a computer security incident involving a sophisticated, coordinated attack against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies."

There was no mention of Google or China, but it's not hard to connect the dots.

As for Yahoo's involvement, an anonymous source told Brian Womack and Ari Levy that it had been hit.  Or in so many words: "Yahoo! Inc., owner of the No. 2 search engine in the U.S., was targeted by a Chinese attack similar to the one that affected Google Inc., according to a person familiar with the matter."

There were reports that Facebook, Google, and Twitter teamed up to hunt some hackers following a series of attacks in August of last year.  Perhaps, as different companies are connected to the more recent strikes, we'll see another coalition form.

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Thu Jan 14, 2010 08:25 am

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