Digital Graffiti Goes Mainstream: TIME Magazine Article
I noticed that TIME covered the laser graffiti artists of the Graffiti Research Lab this week. Nearly a year ago, I covered the phenomenon of guerrilla marketing via laser light images “drawn” on the sides of buildings at night.
Having this covered in a mainstream rag like TIME is probably nearly enough to make the concept jump the shark, and the novelty element and guerrilla marketing value could be virtually annihilated by familiarity.
I’m not really complaining so much as noting the effect — and noting that the promotion value of the medium could become rapidly eroded when it’s too common. The novelty and amusement factor could give way to annoyance if laser displayed images on buildings became frequent. When a methodology hits mainstream, it’s no longer “guerrilla”. 
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 04/15/2008 | Permalink | 
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Filed under: Futurism, Marketing, Newsgraffiti, guerrilla advertising, guerrilla marketing
Asian & Chinese PPC & SEM - Netconcepts Marketer Allen Qu to Speak at SMX China @ Timev
Many of you know that Netconcepts not only operates out of Madison, Wisconsin, but we also have offices in New Zealand, and we do quite a bit of internet marketing and website design work in the still-nascent Asian and Oceanic markets.
For those interested in our work in SEO & SEM in Asia, one of Netconcepts’ marketers, Allen Qu, will be speaking at the upcoming SMX China @ Timev conference in Xiamen, China during April 18 & 19.
I had a chance to visit with Allen back in February, and I can tell you he is extremely savvy in managing our client’s PPC campaigns that are running in Chinese search engines such as Baidu and Google China. Allen will be speaking at SMX China on a panel focussed on PPC ad management, although he is also expert in natural search marketing as well.
Chinese and Asian search markets are considered to be the new frontier in terms of areas for greatest potential future revenue and search audience growth.
If you’re interested in contacting our New Zealand office from the US, their morning office hours overlap US afternoon hours on Mondays through Thursdays. Our NZ office can be phoned at: +64 9 476-4601
Popularity: 9% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 04/02/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Advertising, Conferences, Marketing, Monetization of SearchAsia SEM, Asian SEM, China SEM, Chinese SEM, SMX China
Retailers Recession Proofing Through Optimizing Internet Retail Sites
Overall economic fears are causing many retailers and other businesses to step up their games in terms of promotion. While some retailers are cutting back on advertising or paring down on their inventory, there are compelling reasons to increase the intensity in marketing efforts in order to offset the expected reduction in average customer spending. If your competitors are cutting back on efforts, not only could you have a chance to dominate in your sector, but you could even increase profits at the expense of your competition’s market share.
The internet is a prime area to focus in this period, since the net reduces distance barriers and the difficulty of locating products for buyers, and efforts to increase sales through this medium can be accomplished at lower costs than many other options. One of the most cost-effective areas for internet promotion is via increasing your “natural” traffic referred to your site from search engines.
Many internet retailers haven’t connected the dots sufficiently (more…)
Popularity: 36% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 02/14/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Dynamic Sites, Marketing, SEO, Search Engine OptimizationEcommerce, GravityStream, Internet Retailers, Recession, Search Engine Optimization, SEO
Fantastic Linkbait: Google doesn’t need to find Chuck Norris for you!
This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while - I saw this mentioned on John Battelle’s blog. Type “find Chuck Norris” into Google’s search form, and then hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button, and you’ll get this:
The result is a Google search results page with no listings and the message at the top states:
“Google won’t search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don’t find Chuck Norris, he finds you.”
But wait! This result page is actually a hoax, only pretending to be from Google! It’s actually produced by Arran Scholsberg. Arran is a student at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and is a web designer and photographer.
Popularity: 41% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 01/28/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Google, Link Building, Marketing, Searching, TricksChuck Norris facts, Google, hoaxes, linkbait
More on ISPs & Behavioral Ad Targeting
ClickZ has another good article on ISPs and Behavioral Ad Targeting today. Not only do they mention NebuAd which I wrote about in December, but they also list a few other companies that use similar NOC hardware for the same sorts of behavioral targeting, including: Phorm, FrontPorch, and Project Rialto.
My private individual half doesn’t like this sort of targeting. I pay for internet access, and I don’t particularly want people using my data to pigeon-hole me into a demographic for specific types of ads — and I’m mistrustful of how private/secure/anonymous these companies will keep my individual usage data.
My more public, professional half has to readily admit that for advertisers, behavioural targeting may be very advantageous in terms of communicating to a desired audience of buyers, and could also be very cost-effective in reducing wasteful ad impressions. I suspect that behavioral ad targeting may convert at a higher rate than other media if executed in a sophisticated manner. The only downside is that it likely also restricts the size of the audience share available to be exposed to the ads.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 01/03/2008 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Advertising, Marketing, Newsbehavioral targeting, internet ads, internet advertising, Nebu Ad, NebuAd, online ads, online-advertising
Google Maps Now Sports Special Logo Treatment
I noticed that Google Maps started using a special logo treatment this morning:
The logo is apparently promoting Geography Awareness Week 2007.
Google has done various logos promoting holidays and other special events on the main Google logo for quite a number of years, but I believe this is one of the first ever done on one of their vertical search properties. Unfortunately, the logo doesn’t link to the special event page, and it looks a lot like a roasted turkey — the smallness of it makes it hard to read visually, so I’m betting a lot of Google Maps users won’t have a clue as to what this is signifying.
Update: the Google Lat Long blog mentions their support of Geography Awareness Week.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 11/13/2007 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps, MarketingGoogle, Google-Maps, Logos
Yes, you can automate SEO - we’ve done it!
Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal wrote a post highlighting Commerce360’s stated intention to build automatic optimization software, using a lot of venture capital they raised for this purpose. Loren asks, “Can SEO Be Automated?”
Inspired by this thread, Lisa Barone at Bruce Clay, Inc. responds with “You Can’t Automate Search Engine Optimization” (which is just the tiniest bit ironic, since Bruce Clay’s Dynamic Site Mapping tool arguably provides a level of automated search optimization).
While Commerce360 is looking to create search optimization automation, we’ve already been accomplishing it for quite some time here at Netconcepts, as I outlined in an earlier article on Automatic Search Engine Optimization. So, do I think SEO can be automated? Hell, yes!
Popularity: 10% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 09/21/2007 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: HTML Optimization, Marketing, Monetization of Search, SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Tools, technologyAutomatic-Search-Engine-Optimization, Automatic-SEO, GravityStream, Netconcepts, SEO, SEO-Web-Services
Barack Obama Ad on LinkedIn
I saw this clever ad for Barack Obama running in the right sidebar of my LinkedIn profile page today:
I think it’s an ad, because the clickthrough link is tracked through DoubleClick. When you click on that ad, though, it pops you over to LinkedIn’s Question & Answers section… (more…)
Popularity: 7% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 09/13/2007 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Advertising, Marketing, Social Media OptimizationBarack-Obama, linkedin, Political-Advertising, SMO, Social Media Optimization
Is SEO Awareness Dropping? Google Trends Shows it May Be
Using Google Trends, I was noticing how searches in Google for “Search Engine Optimization” seems to be dropping over the last two years:
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 07/24/2007 | Permalink | Email
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Filed under: Market Data, Marketing, SEO, Search Engine OptimizationGoogle-Trends, Search Engine Optimization, search-marketing, SEO
The Simpsons & Great Participatory-Viral Marketing
This past Saturday, I mosied over into central Dallas to check out the Kwik-E-Mart that was created to promote The Simpsons film, set to air nationwide later this week. The Kwik-E-Mart was created out of a 7-Eleven convenience store – surely the first ever instance of the subject of a satire being remade to more closely resemble the satire itself. The Dallas Kwik-E-Mart is one of the eleven created nationwide out of 7-Eleven stores, and it’s a simply fantastic piece of viral marketing, participatory marketing – and yes, linkbait.
Read on for more details…
Popularity: 7% [?]
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 07/23/2007 | Permalink | Email
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