LiveCamNetwork and 2much.net Ride the RSS WagonWritten by Sidney Zombay/2much.net Media & Communications
(Montreal) July 14, 2004 -- LiveCamNetwork 1.9 creator 2much.net is preparing for release of their video chat site upgrade by turning to RSS (Real Simple Syndication) to centralize their public relations efforts."It's giving me a break," said Greg Jones, in charge of Media and Communications at 2much.net, who researched RSS for months before deciding to give it a go. "Now, instead of auto-submitting, which can be inappropriate, or manually submitting to appropriate markets, most of job is done via RSS." RSS is a way to view headlines without having to download entire article. "This way you, or an editor or news source, can have twenty headlines, with one-line descriptions, where there used to be an entire piece," said Jones. At present, only www.iNternetSexNetwork.com is providing RSS feed, "And that's mostly for our adult video chat clients," Jones said. "But one feed is all you need." Like iSN, sites involved will feature an icon or button with a link users click to view or subscribe to channel. While an "RSS Reader" such as NewsGator or SharpReader will allow these feeds to be read, MyYahoo! users and Googlers can also read and subscribe directly through their browsers. "Right now I've designed a site just for news content," Jones said, referring to iSN. "It's designed to help new sites get a little exposure, but especially to disseminate blog and RSS news of 2much.net."
| | If Big Ad Agencies Can’t Handle Search Engine Marketing, What’s A Small Business To Do?Written by Neil Street
A recent online news article entitled “Five Reasons Why Ad Agencies Hate Search Engine Marketing” struck a responsive chord in search engine marketing (SEM) community. Lots of posts, both critical and supportive, showed up in online forums. The article made some points that I have noted myself in previous articles. The most important ones are that good SEM is labor intensive and expensive, that profitability is hard to achieve, and that search engine companies keep moving goal posts. I think it’s worthwhile considering extent to which these problems also impact localized search engine marketing. Naturally, search engines themselves, for example Google and Yahoo, have evolved with an eye to big, national customers. Given that background, they have developed tools and systems in PPC arena that seem to assume end user, whether an ad agency or a small business owner, has lots of time and resources to work with tools. Anyone who has even dabbled in administration of keyword bidding on these search engines knows how complex it can quickly become. Hence, system is stacked against small business owner from get-go, because he or she does not have time or resources to administer these programs. The author of article asserts that a camapaign of $50,000 per month is necessary to turn a profit on paid search advertising. While I would question universal validity of this statement, it does highlight time and resources dilemma of running a successful paid search program. Why is it so complicated to run a good PPC campaign? At bottom, because model itself requires advertiser to get inside head of consumer in an unprecedented manner. As an example: an important key phrase for my own business is “web design.” So, I bid on this phrase. (This concept itself, “bidding” on a keyword, is a truly alien advertising concept to most small business owners I know). And every day, I get visitors to my website who are interested in “web design.” But does this mean they want to hire a web design firm? Who knows. Maybe they are writing a term paper. Maybe they want to steal some ideas. Maybe they are competition (or worse yet, a flunky hired by competition to click on other guy’s ads). Maybe, maybe, maybe. But I’ve spent my money, and taken my chances. Now, of course, there are lots of ways to hedge my bet. Keyword suggestion tools, bid management tools, etc. But that’s where time and expense comes in. As a small business owner, I can’t afford much of either. Controlling for variables is what makes this kind of search engine marketing prohibitive for most small businesses. As an alternative, various IYP programs offer a more targetted audience for advertiser, as well as stable pricing and predictable placement. IYP is also a model that small businesses recognize, because of crossover from print. The search engine audience may be larger, but IYP audience is surely more qualified.
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