The Pre-Commerce Blog

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* A conference panel I'd actually like to attend: Cluetrain+7

...the very forward-looking Henry Copeland had long since lined up Chris Locke and myself to participate in a panel on Cluetrain+7 in the Interactive track of the show.

* A simple manifesto against writer's block (via Doc)

to me writers block happens when you are afraid to say the things that you want to say. it happens when you self edit yourself before you start writing or while you are writing. it happens when youre trying to be a perfectionist. when youre trying to write to one hard-to-reach person instead of to a willing and wide audience. and it happens when youre confused as to who your audience is.

* Some posts on last week's Search Engine Strategies show in NYC. Session Coverage from Search Engine RoundTable. Technorati's Tag Collection. Traffick. * Truth Marketing vs Sociopathy (featuring Miller Brewing Company)

Here's my question: what exactly has driven marketers like us to stalk our prospects or harass our customers?

* Yet another Web 2.0 Directory. But a big one.

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* The Good Old Days - Thoughts About Paper Catalogs. * Holiday 2005 Online Shopping Statistics. * Some thoughts about resolutions. (via CCUCEO)

One thing about setting goals for the future - make sure they are RAM. Realistic, achieveable and measurable. For instance, I can establish my yearly goal of losing some weight, or I can establish a goal to lose 10 pounds by March 1. This is a clear goal that is realistic, achieveable and measurable. For some goals it may make sense to identify milestones along the way. If my goal is to build a new building in 2006 which will take eight months, I may want to include some significant milestones along the way - foundation in place by February, framing in place by April, etc.

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* Om Malik ponders the question of whether or not tags (and the people who make them) can 'beat Google at the search game'. I don't think there's a simple answer to that one. In terms of results quality it's obvious Google can get beat, because they are often not that good and rarely are they 'the most relevant'. But I worry that tagging of any kind will succumb to spamming far quicker than algos did. Taggers need identities and reputations, and then I think it will start to work. The other problem is that people search on a lotta lotta subjects, and tags are (and will continue to be) far to narrow in their coverage. * What the heck is Web 2.0? This question keeps coming up. It's just interesting right now, but I have a feeling that pretty soon it's going to matter.

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Some things that caught my eye: * The Paid Links Debate. * The Google Economy. * Google vs Yahoo - from another perspective. * Keyword Research Tools. * What's Google Really Doing.

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* We don't work for Google. Part I and Part II. (Greg Yardley) * You ARE a marketer. (headrush) * We're all Clueless. (Seth Godin) All of these are excellent A++ posts, and I hope to add my thoughts about all three of these insightful items in the coming days.

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* Speak with more impact (Decker Marketing) * New SEO Tools (Pandia) * Clueless Marketers (Seth)

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* Search Engine Strategies Session Roundup (Search Engine Roundtable) * Freakonomics Goes To Google (Google Blog) * SEO Extension for Firefox (seopen)

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* Kevin Lee on Google Adwords Changes (clickz)

On August 2, Google will implement changes to the AdWords system that will affect all Google advertisers. The changes address two major areas: status or "keyword state," and the AdRank algorithm.

* Blistering fast broadband coming via Cable Modem? (cnet)

Broadband Internet access via TV cables could reach 100 megabits per second as early as next year--50 times faster than the average broadband speeds now offered to cable TV homes.

* Tom Peters on how small guys can beat huge guys. (adrants)

This time he has a list of 16 MUSTS in order for the little guy to eat the BIG GUYS’ lunch.

* Brands: Think People Not Things (longtail)

Product-centric brands represent promises about products (or retailers) – “buy this product from us because you can trust that it will be a quality product at good value.” Customer-centric brands offer a radically different promise – “buy from us because we know and understand you as an individual customer and we can tailor an appropriate bundle of products and services to meet your individual needs better than anyone else.”

* Wall Street Crybabies - Costco Tells Street To Go Lump It (wonderbranding)

My God. A business that puts its employees and customers before the Almighty Profit does exist. Isn't it amazing that a simple thing like that would create cult-like customer loyalty and $40 billion in revenue... with almost no advertising?

Search Market Share Q2-2005

Real data about who's searching where in Q2 2005: * Google - 5.65 billion U.S. queries (37.6 percent) * Yahoo - 4.65 billion queries (30.4 percent) * MSN - 2.39 billion queries (15.6 percent) * AOL/Time Warner - 1.41 billion queries (9.2 percent) * Ask Jeeves - 934 million queries (6.1 percent) - Via ecommerce times

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* Changes to Google Adwords (searchviews) * BetterPPC for Google Adwords (affiliatetip) * SEO and PPC Tools (SEObook) * How Americans Search (sagerock) * Lead Generation Dashboards (b2b lead gen blog) * Link Popularity via Article Marketing (masternewmedia)

Recommended Links

* Quote-Filled Article on ClickFraud from ClickZ "About 15 to 20 percent of all click activity is erroneous. Seventy percent of that is not by real people," Boyenger said, referring to bots designed by fraudsters to click on PPC ads. "The advertiser is the loser and the companies offering PPC are winning, and so are the affiliates."

* The Future of PPC prices by Kevin Lee of Did-It The consensus is prices are high -- and will probably go higher. There's clearly a lot of anxiety about current prices; many marketers are already at their maximum level of discomfort, given the return on investment (ROI) or conversion metrics they'd like to hit for campaigns.

* Eye Tracking Study Shows 'Golden Triangle' for Search Results The key location on Google for visibility as determined by the eye activity in the study is a triangle that extends from the top of the results over to the top of the first result, then down to a point on the left side at the bottom of the “above the fold” visible results. This key area was looked at by 100 percent of the participants. In the study, this was referred to as the “Golden Triangle”. Generally, this area includes top sponsored, top organic results and Google’s alternative results, including shopping, news or local suggestions.