To make themselves ready for their attack on search, MSN will split up in two groups.
Monthly Archives: October 2003
Best Advertiser
Just found this short bit on MarketingWonk, my new daily reading and a really nice and informative side. For all those wanting to delve down into how the Google ranking works, here is a short introduction.
The formula for the top rank at Google is likely very close to something like
CTR*CPC*1000 = RPM
CTR = Click-Through Ratio
CPC = Cost-per-Click
RPM = Revenue per thousand (M coming from Roman numerology)
This in effect gives you a number and the higher the number the more money Google earns with that advertiser for that keyword. An example will make it clear.
Advertiser 1 is paying $1 per Click and has a 5% clickthrough rate.
Advertiser 2 is paying $0.5 per Click but has a 15% clickthrough rate.
Other pay-per-click sites now put Advertiser 1 above Advertiser 2. Google would put Advertiser 2 above Advertiser 1. Why?
Let’s looks at 1000 searches for the keyword they are both advertising on.
Advertiser 1: $1*1000*0.05=$50
Advertiser 2: $0.5*1000*0.15=$75
It makes more sense to put 2 on top and give him this little extra push in clickthroughs to increase your revenue. You also want to make that advertiser happy.
As a side effect, the ad more clicks is guessed to be the one more relevant for he user. This is where we are getting very complicated though and as Kevin said in the comments, you need to see which position, wording, CPC, … is right for you and your campaign. This would be going to deep for this short introduction. It’s a great field.
Why N-Gage doesn’t sell
Let’s put it like this. It doesn’t sell for places that sell it as a gaming platform. Two things here.
1. Gamers hate it and hated it since E3, or so it seems.
2. Placed that sell it as a game deck, don’t subsidise it with their monthly airtime…
Telecom providers do! They are selling it for 150€ and more off the standard price. I can now have the N-Gage for 180€ easily as a phone and will likely find it for less. It won’t sell like this in retail outlets that focus on games, especially because it needs a network connection anyway.
It’ll be interesting to see what Nokia does next. Check out a bit more about this at this The Register story.
Knowledge Management
Ross Mayfield write gives some interesting quotes and links in relation to his thinking about Knowledge Management here. Of course he is CEO of Socialtext and thus has a legitimate interest in saying what he does, but it still brings across an interesting point. Can you manage knowledge as such, top-down, enforcing it. Or would it be better to let all the pressure go and just enable it to be shared. In the second part you have the potential of loosing lots of knowledge as you are not forcing, but the question is if you will not be able to capture so much more as you let the minds run free.
The Carwashbandit
What birds can do. This is hilarious.
Google AdWords
Good article about Google AdWords and them buying Sprinks on News.com. It seems that Google has already bought a rival only to use their own technology before. They might only be interested in the ad-realestate that Sprinks has and getting them out of the picture, which is something that I can very much believe. Scary though.
Apple’s Expose
Expose is one of the coolest features in the new OS X Version codenamed Panther. To learn more about what it is about check out this review on iGeek.
Music: R U Ready from the album “It’s All About The Stragglers (Special Edition)” by Artful Dodger
Nokia 7700
Nokia has just released the Nokia 7700, or rather announced as always. It’s a very interesting device. For good speculation about the future it might bring us (hell, it will only come Q2 2004) check out this The Register story. Of course this is not the only killer Nokia announced. Check the full list here.
Music: Sparks from the album “Melody A.M.” by Royksopp
N-Gage Buzz
This might not be the buzz that Nokia had in mind. Check Sidetalkin’ (they even registered their own domain 
)
