Media Week

Let’s face it, none of them have a really good ring do they?

What does sound good though is the deal!

When the announcement was made on Wednesday I was judging an SEO award where all the talk was about Google.

For the last 4 years not a week has gone past without someone asking me, “How are you going to increase query share?” & “When are you going to buy Yahoo!?”

We totally understand that in order to attract advertisers to adCenter we needed to have more share to make the return on time investment worth it. We also understand the frustration advertisers have felt at not being able to get their hands on more of what is largely regarded as the highest quality search traffic around.

Well now we’ve entered an agreement with the folks from Sunnyvale and the result is some serious competition in the search space.

Over the years, many an agency rep has told me in the halls of many a conference that they’re willing us on. Competition is key to their success and the success of the industry, creating an exciting market place and giving advertisers choice and control.

We’ve invested millions in adCenter and efficiency tools like the adCenter Desktop and the ground breaking Microsoft Advertising Intelligence – and don’t take my word for it either, just check out this post on our keyword research tool – so we’re definitely serious about this space and will continue innovating.

Bing is a great product. At the recent Search Summit I organised in London, the Bing demo went down extremely well. People could see that there’s a change coming in the way we search and the way we do business.

One thing advertisers hate is waste. All they want to know is how they could have spent that money more wisely. So you only have to take a look at what the Atlas Institute have been doing with Engagement Mapping to see Microsoft Advertising is not all about search, but that we understand the whole user journey past all digital touch points.

A huge global audience on MSN plus messenger and hotmail plus the Microsoft Media Network plus in-game advertising on Xbox and elsewhere plus windows mobile plus innovations like Photosynth and Surface equals a mouth watering menu of technologies, insight and audience that advertisers can tap into in one place.

I love this industry because there is never a dull moment. Technology and innovation moves so fast planning too far ahead almost seem counterintuitive. Rest assured, in 5-10 years ALL advertising will be digital and when that happens Microsoft will be one of those companies that have helped the industry get there by providing the very best software plus services, actionable insight and dogged determination to provide advertisers with the very best value and experience possible.

I still feel a bit silly that in 1997 I told a PC World advisor that I didn’t think the internet would "catch on".

I’m glad I saw the light (eventually) and proud to be part of the most exciting period in its evolution to date!

This afternoon I’m going to judge some digital travel awards within the travel sector which centre around SEO or search engine optimization.

While big travel sites are investing heavily in agencies and in-house teams to revamp their pages, build links and create engaging and compelling content, many small businesses still aren’t and it’s a shame.

I’m getting married in 17 days time and it was my “stag weekend” on Saturday/Sunday just gone. My best men booked a cottage in near Monmouth for all of us to stay in and use as a base for a plethora of activities on and around the Welsh border.

They told me on the trip home that it had taken hours to find the right kind of place to take us on: near a pub, near some cool activities, not too far from a motorway from London with a supermarket nearby.

One of the reasons why they found it so tough was that the websites showcasing these kind of places - cottages, B&Bs, small hotels etc - just don’t have enough information on them to make an informed decision, an informed decision from a search engine or a potential punter point of view.

Earlier in the year I went on a trip to Dublin and thought I’d combine the trip with a weekend down in County Wicklow. It took me 4 hours of searching on all 3 search engines, travel review sites, mapping sites and more before I found the kind of place I was after – walkable to a pub, within an hour of Dublin, nice hikes nearby and a traditional Irish breakfast for my American fiancée to savour after a night on the black stuff.

Why did it take so long?

Because boutique web designers who throw up these kind of small, niche sites obviously haven’t got a clue about SEO. They aren't doing their clients justice by not titling pages properly and providing information on the local area or facilities that might be useful for users or search engines to rank them properly.

So let’s all do some evangelism the next time we’re by the sea, up in the lakes or walking the valleys of this great country of ours.

If the establishment’s website is a pile of dirty laundry then tell them and point them to Google, Bing and Yahoo!’s webmaster guidelines so we can help these small businesses flourish and get deserved visibility in search rankings, better site usability and more relevant and higher converting traffic.

After 300 years Aga, the company that makes those warm and cosy ovens that cost a bomb, have been marketing a new gizmo which brings their style of cooking bang up to date.

Latest models of their ovens have had the new technology but now you can add this widget and program your retro Aga to turn on, off, up or down whenever you want saving money, energy and the environment all at the same time.

It caught my eye because how many old things in our daily lives can we add a piece of cutting edge technology to in order to make it better? I’ve just thrown out an MP3 player because it’s not supported by Creative anymore, and with it went connecting wires and a speaker system that won’t work with anything else.

What a waste!

When you think of all the gadgets, laptops and mobile phones that end up on the scrap heap it's commendable that Aga have gone the extra mile to bring exisiting ovens into the 21st century.

Sue Unerman’s recent Media Week Comment “Conference tweets left the chair and speakers lagging behind” had me tittering a little. There has been a fabulous trend recently for using Twitter Fall and HashTags at conferences to show live tweets on stage and solicit questions from the audience but, as Sue points out from a recent Guardian conference, it is fraught with danger as it’s open to abuse.

That said, if people are Tweeting from an event it does add a fascinating dynamic to the proceedings. Twitter has provided a way for folks to express themselves in an open and concise way, so why not let that sentiment be part of the debate.

We are getting more used to coping with more than one channel of information so concentrating on what’s being said on stage and the Tweets, if in context, isn’t too difficult and can create a holistic view of the thoughts of the audience in real time.

Obviously it can be gamed but perpetrators will just get outed and made to feel silly as it’s not in the spirit of social media. I do agree with Sue that it’s fair to have a monitor on stage so the panel can see what Tweets are flooding in!

The above picture is of Biz Stone on stage at the Cannes Lions last month, but as a co-founder of Twitter no one would dare to poke fun at him!

Stephen Fry shouldn’t worry about his little chat to a youthful throng at the iTunes Festival last night in Camden’s Roundhouse.

He was talking about piracy (ripping off entertainment type stuff illegally and without paying for it and not the ship stealing, “shiver me timbers” kind) to well over a thousand scallywags who’d garnered free tickets from those generous folks at Apple to see some bands later on that evening.

For nearly an hour he held an audience rapt in awe at his “internet history lesson/rant” against the “draconian” efforts by record companies and distributors to quash the little folk who might engage in a little bit of “ bit torrenting” of a Sunday afternoon.

Given the audience and given the stage I think few people could have commanded the respect and silence (punctuate by occasional raucous laughter and cheers) that Fry managed during his stint. A mixture of impromptu comedy, infectious knowledge and self-effacing self-questioning meant at least some of the arguments we got across in an interesting and accessible way.

For the record he did not suggest, as a later tweet clarified, that he was a “help yourself and be a pirate advocate” but that his industry should take a long hard look at the way they are policing CD,DVD,TV rip-offs and try and think of alternative business models.

To some, his “you’re all decent and loving human beings” approach may have seemed naive but if the majority of the audience were serial freebie-mongers then they might just think twice the next time and “do the right thing!”

I must have been the 3rd oldest bloke in the audience behind Stephen and Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC who said later he’d like to see the same talk given to the Musician’s Union but I think that was the point. You had a high profile star of several kinds of screens giving an open and authentic talk at an event organised by a music-download company, and admitting that he didn’t have all the answers to several hundred intelligent entertainment consumers of today and tomorrow.

He might well get a few comments from fellow writers and performers who are not quite in such a privileged or wealthy position, but I think his point was the industry has to evolve as rapidly consumers and technology do.

If you’re in any doubt as to what he actually said as opposed to inferred, you can find most of his speech in any number of places on the internet already this morning.......and it’s all free!

Where were you when the untimely death of Michael Jackson was announced? I was on the beach in Cannes with colleagues winding down after the festival. Someone mentioned it and I went straight to Twitter, then Facebook then my email on my phone......nothing! At that instant the web had ground to a halt.

Some people were shocked, others were saddened by the news. I didn’t really feel anything. I’d got close to the great man once back in the late ‘90s. I worked in Harrods and he breezed through with his 12 body guards. I got within 6 feet and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Whatever you think about the man the music was awesome. Online sales of his albums have rocketed and even as I write someone is mentioning Thriller every minute on Twitter.

I often get the heads up on stuff Microsoft is doing before it gets released. Such is the open and transparent nature of our embracing of social media we are actively encouraged to blog about stuff.

On Tuesday, the day of his memorial service, I was told MSN in Canada was going to be live streaming it in Silverlight. I wrote a blog post titled Watch Michael Jackson Memorial Online just to see what happened.

One title, one image and one line of text and I got over 1000 visitors – 5 of whom left comments in the form of poems or eulogies!

“My heart is missing a big chunk, I can’t believe that Michael is dead, it’s just not fair he was the most beautiful, kind, caring and loving and giving person on this planet his soul will live on forever, he was an angel that lived on earth and now he is a angel up above. may his family find joy in all the wonderful memories he has left behind. I love you Michael, Always baby … I will never forget you.. the most amazing man x”

“who God bless no man curse, Michael was a man blessed by God, and I am inspired by all of his works he has done on earth, i have been touch by him and so has the world, may his soul rest in peace in heaven.”

My personal blog is about internet marketing and stuff I get up to or find interesting in my personal life, but it seems just by writing about MJ some folks have ignored the channel and feel they have to leave their mark.

The same thing happened with a post I wrote on Busts 4 Justice – a well written title, a picture and re-direction to their Facebook page and I manage to have thousands of visitors join in a bra debate!

My point is for all of you guys measuring conversations about your brands, companies or even your personal reputation, make sure you’re ploughing through the whole web when collating data because you might be surprised as to where those discussions are taking place!

Not sure many of us that attended the International Advertising Festival in Cannes last week will be able to look at a glass of rose for a while. Although numbers were down this year, it was deemed a huge success, especially for digital advertising.

My highlights were the interview with Biz Stone and an 81 second chat with our CEO Steve Ballmer who did a little piece on camera with me for an internal meeting.

Two very different men, heading up two very different companies but who are both working towards a connection and targeting nirvana.

In Steve’s seminar on the Wednesday and during my time with Biz, they both talked of how brands are benefitting from the data digital advertising can provide to help marketers make better decisions about how to spend their marketing dollars.

Biz said he was in town to scout for ideas for a subscription model for the bigger companies using Twitter. In return for the revenue, Twitter would provide additional insight to help those companies get a better handle on the conversations about their brand and maybe some help with heavy lifting/reporting.

Steve was excited about the prospect of all advertising being digital in the next ten years. He talked of bridging the gap between mobile phone, PC and TV and making software part of the creative and media process, making ads as relevant to the content and consumer as possible.

Just imagine a digital marketing world where all channels are joined up and there’s little waste. More relevant content married with targeted advertising to pay for it is what consumers want.

During the Cannes Debate on the Friday, Sir Martin Sorrell quizzed marketing chiefs from P&G, Kraft, J&J and McDonalds. He asked about advertising going digital in the next 10 years. The excitement was palpable although the feeling was maybe there had been too much talk about the channel and not enough about the creativity surrounding it.

But as I wrote at the time, “if it’s data and insight we’re after to make us better as marketers and seek out more value, it’s the technology enabling the creativity that’s going to bring us that holy grail.”