eMarketing Blog

New Address Of This Blog

2005-08-06T23:33:00.000+02:00

Just want to tell you that from now on the new web site address where you can read news, articles and interview related to emarketing is http://www.emarketingblog.com

Microsoft Sues Google: Battle For China

2005-07-21T14:52:00.000+02:00

Microsoft sued Google because of a former vice president of search technologies and Microsoft's chief architect of business strategy in China, Kai-Fu Lee for an breach of a noncompete and confidentiality agreement. Microsoft also accuses Google that they knew about conditions of the Lee's contract where it is stated that he can't work for a competitor company.

"Google is fully aware of Lee's promises to Microsoft, but has chosen to ignore them, and has encouraged Lee to violate them," the suit alleges.

This show great interest of Microsoft and Google for the China market.

Click here to read the whole article.

Money Maps

2005-07-18T21:33:00.000+02:00

When the Big 3 - Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft start to focus on something you can be quite sure that it is the next big thing. They all have their own blog services and now all of them want to take their part in the online map business cake. Yahoo! and Google have already have their map services and Microsoft announced that soon they will launch Virtual Earth map service. It is pretty obvious why there is so much interest in maps. It offers great way for local and contextual advertising. This will make a new online advertising channel.

Survey: Most Online Magazines Have Web Only Advertisers

2005-06-30T14:30:00.000+02:00

New survey made by International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP) show that magazine publishers find new ways for increasing revenues online. Survey show that 54% of submitted web sites are profitable and that 66 percent of consumer magazine websites run ads from advertisers that don't advertise in their print editions which is up from 53 percent two years ago. U.S. Web sites surveyed included companies like Meredith Corporation, PC World Communications, and Readers Digest Association.

You can find more info and download free PDF at http://www.fipp.com/1709

MarketingSherpa's 10 Best Blogs for 2005

2005-06-16T15:36:00.000+02:00

Popular marketing & PR resource MarketingSherpa published the list of 10 best blogs for 2005 voted by Marketing Sherpa subscribers.

And the winners are...

Best individual's blog on the general topic of marketing and advertising
Awarded to: Seth Godin's Blog http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/blog.html
Honorable Mention: Adrants http://www.adrants.com

Best group weblog on the general topic of marketing and advertising
Winner: MarketingVOX http://www.marketingvox.com/
Honorable Mention (Tie): Marketing Genius http://marketinggenius.blogspot.comChurch of the Customer http://www.churchofthecustomer.com

Best PR-topic blog
Winner: Media Guerrilla http://mmanuel.typepad.com/media_guerrilla
Honorable Mention: Strategic Public Relations http://www.prblog.typepad.com

Best B-to-B marketing-topic blog
Winner: Guerrilla Consulting http://guerrillaconsulting.typepad.com/
Honorable Mention: B-to-B Lead Generation Blog http://blog.startwithalead.com/

Best blog on small business marketing
Winner: Duct Tape Marketing http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php
Honorable Mention: Small Business Trends http://www.smallbusinesses.blogspot.com

Best blog on online marketing
Winner: Chris Baggott's Best Practices in Email http://exacttarget.typepad.com/chrisbaggott
Honorable Mention: Charlotte Li's Blog http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/

Also, there are winners for categories Search Marketing, Niche Marketing, non-English Language Blog, Top reader's choice write-in vote.

More info at www.marketingsherpa.com

Are you a webmaster?

2005-06-11T22:03:00.000+02:00

If you are a webmaster, I guess that you are always interested in finding new services and most of all free services that will make your job easier. So here is one of those kind of sites that offer several great and also free services.

In the webmaster tools section at Digital Point you'll find some great services like Google AdSense Charts that generate all sorts of charts with AdSense CSV data export, Google AdSense Sandbox that will show you what Google AdSense will be displayed for any webpage on the Internet, Keyword Suggestion Tool that is very useful for doing Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and many other services.

Firefox is not only for geeks

2005-06-08T00:30:00.000+02:00

Firefox is the today's fastest growing browser. According to one of the best known research companies related to digital world Nielsen/Netratings more than 2.6 milion people visited Foxfire web site to download this, more and more popular browser. Firefox has the image that it is the most secure browser but there were (and probably there will be more) news that they also had some security flaws. Many analysts predict that there will be more security problems how browser gets bigger marketshare.

At the begining, Firefox was used mostly by the most proficient and informed Internet users and now it is becoming the important browser with the 6% of browser marketshare. This big popularity that Firefox gained in little time since the official release from November, 9, 2004 is because it is highly customizable with skins and because of the SpreadFirefox campaign.

U.S. online retail sales to hit $172B this year

2005-05-27T17:51:00.000+02:00

According to Shop.Org and Forrester Research U.S. online retail sales will hit $172B this years. Study results show that cosmetics, fragrances and other categories focused at women are expected to grow 33 percent. Also, study results show that sales of jewelry and luxury goods (31%) and flowers, cards, and gifts (30%) are expected to rise.

The report predicts that online sales (including travel) will rise 22.0 percent to $172.4 billion this year. Sales excluding travel are expected to reach $109.6 billion.

"Though initially adopted by men as a shopping tool, women are flocking to the Internet in droves to comparison shop, research, and buy," said Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org. "Online retailers who sell products that are purchased by women are in a favorable position this year, as we expect those categories to grow substantially."

Also, good news for e-commerce industry is that profitability continues to climb.

"With profitability behind them, retailers can now focus on innovation and growth through things like increased integration of their online and offline businesses and internationalization of their sites," said Carrie Johnson, lead author of the report and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. "One way retailers will grow sales over the next several years will be by launching country-specific sites and operations to accommodate a growing number of international customers."

Exclusive interview with Mr. Joshua Baer, SKYLIST, Inc.

2005-05-25T23:12:00.000+02:00

In this exclusive interview we asked Mr. Joshua Baer, SKYLIST CEO to discuss current trends in email marketing business with the focus on CAN-SPAM and steps that have to be taken in order to minimize SPAM problems.

Joshua Baer's role in shaping email marketing solutions and best practices is unparalleled. Over the last decade, SKYLIST has displayed outstanding growth and remains private and profitable.

While growing SKYLIST, Josh has also continued to actively contribute to the email community at large. His email community contributions include influential roles in industry standards development forums, authorship, and frequent conference and panel presentations. He is a steering committee member of the Email Service Provider Coalition.

In 1998, Mr. Baer co-authored Internet RFC 2369, establishing a standard way for users to subscribe and unsubscribe from email lists. UnsubCentral is his latest brainchild and spin out company dedicated to aiding CAN-SPAM compliance obligations.

Dejan Bizinger: What do you think about the future of email marketing and email publishing?

Joshua Baer: We just went through a scary dip for past year and half since the enactment of CAN-SPAM and the explosion of affiliate marketing, but the viability of email marketing is starting to climb again as people become more comfortable with the new regulations. CAN-SPAM is helping, as is authentication. People are sending more targeted and personalized mail, rather than high-volume mass mailings, realizing that more is not better when it comes to email.

DB: What do you think about the importance of blogs and RSS in e-publishing?

JB: I think they are still peripheral. There has been hype surrounding it, which has been encouraged by the spam problem, but in essence, it is still fundamentally not push technology, which is what makes email “the killer app.” Email is powerful because its push technology, not pull. If you sign up for something you don’t have to remember to go back and get it.

DB: Do you think that a lot of email newsletters and SPAM that cause email overload will have for the result that less people will include email marketing as an item in their online marketing budget and tactics? What does this mean for list hosting companies such as SKYLIST?

JB: People are increasing budgets now, people feel more confident in the viability of email, as spam solutions continue to emerge and grow stronger.

DB: What is the greatest benefit of email marketing?

JB: The efficiency of cost and feedback. Cost, time and functionality. It costs less and takes less time to produce, deliver and get feedback than ordinary channels and you can get much more clear and detailed feedback. It makes marketing more of a science, less of an art.

DB: SKYLIST is one of the first companies that offered CAN-SPAM compliant product StormPost. How effective is the CAN-SPAM law?

JB: It is important to understand how effective any law can be. Murder is illegal yet people are still murdered every day. The law isn’t the end-all-be-all solution to the problem, but it has helped heightened awareness and encouraged best practices. No law can solve this problem outright; it must be combined with best practices such as authentication and reputation. Solving the spam problem is not about figuring which mail to block, but which legitimate mail to accept.

DB: Do you think that Microsoft SenderID is the first big step in fighting against SPAM? What have to be done more in order to minimize SPAM?

JB: Authentication is the first step, it helps identify legitimate sources, and has cut a wide swath in the amount of fraudulent senders. However, it won’t solve problem by itself. We must build on a foundation of authentication with accreditation and reputation, making it a transparent open process.

DB: Should regular business e-mail be encrypted?

JB: No, encryption of all business email is overkill and unnecessary. In the future, business email will be cryptographically signed, i.e. validated but not necessarily encrypted.

DB: Please describe your three products: StormPost Hosting, StormPost Software and UnsubCentral (target companies for each product) and how they help companies to do their email marketing more effectively?

JB: The StormPost™ Software License is a top choice for organizations who want an internal solution that will deliver both email campaigns and cost savings.

StormPost customer benefits include:

Enterprise level email database marketing capabilities.

Unparalleled scalability and deliverability

Advanced personalization, targeting, tracking, and reporting

Unique reporting shows true deliveryStormPost Hosted Edition ( ASP ) provides self-service access to secure and private email marketing accounts.
All StormPost hosted accounts are managed by a dedicated account team that provides both technical and ISP relationship support.

Hosted customer benefits include:

Dedicated account management

24 / 7 emergency support

No hardware costs

Free, immediate upgrades

Sliding scale CPM pricing based on email message delivery requirements

UnsubCentral, Inc. provides email suppression and consumer preference management solutions to leading advertisers, ad networks, and affiliate networks. The Austin, Texas-based corporation offers solutions that create a secure environment for managing opt-out lists across the enterprise, affiliates and various third parties. Integrated with major affiliate networks and email service providers and reviewed by TRUSTe, the solutions ensure clients comply with the CAN-SPAM Act and data privacy requirements. For more information, please visit www.unsubcentral.com.

DB: You are a steering committee member of the Email Service Provider Coalition. Please tell us the main roles and activities of ESPC.

JB: The Email Service Provider Coalition is a cooperative group of industry leaders working to create solutions to the continued proliferation of spam and the emerging problem of deliverability. Our membership provides volume mail delivery services to an estimated 250,000 clients - representing the full breadth of the U.S. marketplace. The ESPC is currently working on solutions to spam and deliverability concerns through a combination of legislative advocacy, technological development, and industry standards. The ESPC is comprised of three sub-committees:

Legislative – This committee guides our lobbying efforts on federal and state spam legislation. We provide direct advocacy before the FTC and Congress. For state issues, we have partnered with the Internet Alliance for monitoring and coordination. The geographic breadth of our group has allowed us to respond to many state spam statues directly, using members on the ground. This group meets weekly, with ad hoc meetings called from time to time to respond to state developments.

Technology – This committee is evaluating and developing technological solutions that would allow more accurate responses to spam (and fewer false positives). A technical working group has been formed within this group to explore and propose such solutions. This group meets as needed, with in-person meetings scheduled occasionally

Communications – This committee provides broad public affairs strategy for the Coalition. We have been actively working to highlight the consumer harm associated with false positives and filtering. This committee also provides guidance and support for our press relations.

DB: Describe a day in the life of Joshua Baer?

JB: A day in the life of Joshua Baer begins at 6am and usually consists of talking to customers and prospects as well as industry leaders. Many days involve press or analyst interviews and very often I am traveling all over the world to speak at conferences and trade shows.

Wanna talk with big names at one place?

2005-05-23T16:16:00.000+02:00

Look no further. Just read on Jason Calacanis web log an interesting report about the D Conference organized by The Wall Street Journal. I think that if you visit conference web site especially their speakers list you will be aware why is the registration price $3,495.

You can't be everyday on the conference where you can listen speaches from Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jerry Yang, David Filo, Barry Diller...is this enough :-)?

Good news for bloggers

2005-05-18T22:02:00.000+02:00

In previous article I wrote that Google loves blogs and there are more facts that support that. Google announced that as of Wednesday they launched its beta program for contextual advertising in RSS feeds based on AdSense.

"The idea is simple: advertisers have their ads placed in the most appropriate feed articles; publishers are paid for their original content; readers see relevant advertising."-published on Google Blog

This is great news for bloggers that can start monetizing their RSS feeds with AdSense.

Google Acquired Dodgeball.com

2005-05-12T23:31:00.000+02:00

It seems that Google likes blogs very much. After buying Blogger and announcing mobile options in Blogger, Dodgeball.com announced that as of May, 11th Dodgeball.com and Google joined forces. Dodgeball.com is a very popular mobile social software company that offers services for finding a date using a mobile phone with a Friends-of-Friends option. You can find more info about this aquisition at www.dodgeball.com

Make Your Web Site User-Friendly!

2005-05-12T22:59:00.000+02:00

Making a web site is easy. Making a good web site is not so
easy. There are many things you have to consider if you want to
make a good and successful web site.

Everyone who knows at least something about marketing knows that
you have to fit your product so that suit customers need. Don't
expect that customers will accommodate to your web site. If, from
some reason, they get an impression that your site is confusing
and that you didn't tried hard to make their visit as easy as
possible. As you know, there are many web sites, so why do you
think that anyone will bother to stay at your site if it is not
enough good.

So, how can you make your web site user-friendly? I will try to
explain you now.

Loading

In order that your visitor see your web site it must be loaded
pretty fast. I could never understand someone who's web sites
is loading several minutes. Do these people think that people
will really wait for their masterpiece? You bet that they won't.
Your page shouldn't be bigger than 30K. When you design your
web site you should first put one table above you web site
content where you will put a sponsorship banners. This is because
that your advertisers can get good visibility. Also, your logo
and company name should load very fast. One of the main
marketing principles is that people have to remember your name,
logo and your message. You probably have many competitors. Your
brand-name have to be remembered. Otherwise, it is most likely
that they will forget you and never come back again.

You can test your web site loading page at:

http://www.websitegarage.com

Colors

OK, let's suppose that your page have a decent loading time and
that visitor decided to give it a try to your web site and your
product. So, you better that they find complementar colors on
your web site. I guess that after they have come to your site
you don't want that they leave with eye-sight problems. You
should know some basic knowledge about how certain color fits
to some other. Colors on your site can also depend about the
your web site's type. It means that if you want to have some
kid site your site can be very colorful with some animated
images. Business sites, in most cases don't have to be to
colorful.

You can find useful info about designing your web site at:

http://www.htmlgoodies.com
http://www.webreference.com
http://www.dynamicdrive.com
http://www.useit.com

Information

If someone would asked you what is the single most important
thing on web site, I hope that you would say that is
information. You won't have many benefits if you hired someone
who is expert in programs like Dreamweaver, who will make fancy
animations in Flash, who will make extraordinary images in
Photoshop and Corel Draw if people on your site can't find
something because they come in the first place. That is
information. Unless your site should be some kind of reference
for company who wants to hire a web designer and you want to
show them what you can, people in most cases are not much
interested in design. Take Google, for example. Its design
could make anyone with a basic web design design knowledge.
Google is the best search engine not because some fancy images.
It is the best because of the information he provides. Remember
that when you design your web site. Beside information about
your product, people should be able to find a contact
information on the first page. Also, it is not useful to have
many info on your web site if people can't easily to find. You
should try that all info on your web site be accessible with
3 or less clicks.

Automatization

It is very useful that you put some automatization on your web
site. Why is that important? Well, if you expect that your
visitors do something for you, first you have to do something
for them. What I mean is that you have to help them to make some
actions. I will tell you several examples where automatization
can be used.

Let's say your site have a lot of visitors. It won't be very wise
solution that everyone who would like to ask you something
contact you via email. It is not very convenient because you
would get a lot of emails that takes up considerable time to
answer. Good solution when you want to offer your visitors a
choice to contact you about several topics to contact you via
form mail. Then you ask for necessary info they have to provide.
This is good because you won't get emails that are too broad nor
to narrow. There are other use of form mails. For example for
subscribing to newsletters, to order products, to send your
listing etc..

Another good choice for using web site automatization are
multiple subscription check-boxes. In case you don't know, this
enables that your visitors can subscribe to several newsletters
at once, which means by entering their email address only once.
It is very important to have this script if you have several
newsletters. Don't expect that many people will bother to
subscribe to several newsletters if you don't make them easier
to do it.

You can see an example at:

http://www.marketingsherpa.com
http://www.emailuniverse.com

People often ask their visitors to recommend their site.
Recommending a site can be done very effectively if you use
a recommendation script. There people can enter email addresses
of their friends and they will receive an invitation from hi or
she to visit that web site. There are many scripts for this
purpose.

You can find useful scripts for your site at:

http://www.hotscripts.com
http://www.cgi-resources.com

There are companies which offer this service:

http://www.letemknow.com
http://www.recommend-it.com

You have just read some tips for making your site user-friendly.
Of course, there are many more to do. When you design your web
site you have to put yourself in your visitor's shoes and ask
yourself how would like that a certain site look like. I want
you to make great friendships!

Be Smart, Swap Links!

2005-05-08T01:44:00.000+02:00

Once you've made your web site and put it on the Internet, the next thing you need to do is promote it. If you don't, then people won't find your site. Same with newsletters and blogs: people are not going to find you unless you tell them you are there.

There are many ways to promote your web site or newsletter. You should already know that it is very important to publish your own newsletter to keep in contact with your customers, visitors and as a means of promoting your site.

You could try to have a high placement in the search engines, but that's not easy. Especially, if you are trying to get listed with some popular keywords which will bring the most traffic.

Then, another option are newsgroups. This technique can be pretty useful, but you have to be careful to make sure you post appropriately to the right groups and joining in the discussions takes up a considerable amount of time.

I think that best means of promotion if you don't have too much money for advertising is to exchange links with others. Then you both benefit from it. Also, having many links to your site also improves your ranking on many of the search engines, because of the way their algorithms work, so its a win-win situation.

How to find swap resources

If you want to have many visitors or subscribers, then logically, you should have your link in as many places as possible. Many studies show that most visitors will come to your site from the links on other sites. OK, you think, now I only have to have many links on other sites.

Do you think that it is easy? Well, it is not too hard if you know ways to achieve it.

First of all you have to decide which are those sites where you want to have your link. You have to choose a target audience. It is not very effective to have your link on a totally unrelated site, but, on the other hand, you don't have to have your link on competitor sites. So you need to find those sites that complement yours. Then it is more likely that people will actually click on your link.

Now, how can you easily find good places to advertise? You could try the search engines. You will get many results, but many of them are useless for your marketing campaign. You will get far more results with less approaches if you find people who are also already looking to swap resources from among specialist search engines and directories.

When you have found good sites that match your target, you have to contact them, of course.

Newsletter for people interested in swapping ads and links

Swap Resources

How to make a contact

It is very important to write a good email. You can't simply say: "Hey, I want to have my link on your site". It doesn't work that way.

First of all, you need to personalize your swap request. For example it is better to say: "Dear Dejan..." than "Dear Webmaster...". Include their site or ezine name in the email too.

After that you have to explain why are you interested in swapping links with them. For example you can say that they offer valuable information and you think that that it will be useful to your visitors to come to their site. You have to tell them why they should put your link on your site: i.e. what's in it for them.

By swapping links you can make some great online friends. After that, you will be able to cooperate on many other things.

When you swap links don't only use the number of subscribers or visitors for determining whether you will exchange links with someone or not. The value of a certain blog, email newsletter or site should also be important to you.

Also, another important thing is to know where your link will be and how many other ads will be in the same place where you will advertise. What is better for you; to have your ad placed in amongst many in an ezine with many subscribers, or in newsletter with less subscribers but where your ad will be only one? I think that many of you would choose second option.

As you can see, swapping links is not so easy as it may sound. There are many things you have to consider when you choose your swap resource. It's a good thing that swapping links is one of the smartest ways of free promotion of your site, email newsletter and blog.

Exclusive interview with Mr. David Yancey, Vivante

2005-03-27T16:41:00.000+02:00

The second interview is with Mr. David Yancey, founder of Vivante and owner of Proactics Partners. Proactics Partners is a privately held software developer, Internet applications designer, and interactive strategy consulting firm. They develop web-based product and service concepts, develop proprietary software applications, and design and develop interactive software platforms and websites. Also, he is well-known in the marketing world because of his useful contributions on several popular discusssion lists and forums. You can find more info about David Yancey and his work at http://www.proactics.com

Dejan Bizinger) What do you think about current Internet advertising industry?

David Yancey) The industry is very strong, as everyone now realizes. I was sure this would ultimately be the case, from when I founded the “ibiz” small business newsletters group in 1999.

One reason online advertising is growing steadily is that larger advertisers are beginning to shift significant campaign dollars to “interactive” from traditional advertising channels. In 2000-2001, when the so-called “Internet bubble” burst, many wondered why the major consumer advertisers were not jumping in, to take advantage of the great advertising bargain opportunities. But these companies and their ad agencies did not then have the specific performance data that showed how effective interactive advertising can be. Now, five years later, the data is available, and it shows dramatically superior ROI in many cases. Naturally, therefore, the larger marketers are responding with major budget B2B, or “business to business” online advertising is similarly picking up. In this sector, it is mainly due to the maturing of “paid search” and its PPC options that have motivated businesses to move their ad
budget online.

Finally, the recent move of search sites into local-area search is changing the allocation of advertising and promotional budgets among smaller and locally-focused businesses. These could not cost-effectively use the web until just about 3 months ago. In hard numbers, the growing list of local search, and, more importantly, geographically-targeted contextual ads, means that, over the coming five years, about 3-4 *million* businesses will become online advertisers. This means a growth in the number of paying advertisers of about 1000% in just five years!

As local targeting becomes more sophisticated, we will see perhaps 60% of the advertising budget that is now allocated to local newspapers and Yellow Pages directories shift from print to online channels. In global dollars, this means that by 2010, total global “interactive” advertising could well be more than US$25 *billion*. I realize that my forecast is *much* higher than those of say, Kelsey Group, or JupiterMedia. But in my opinion, these analysts do not fully understand the nature or scale of the coming shift in budgets, especially among smaller advertisers, and among advertisers not located in North America.

DB) Do you think that email publishing will be replaced with blogs or RSS?

DY) In a single word, no.

Do not mistake my meaning, please. RSS and the blogs RSS drives are very important, and are growing fast. All epublishers need to be exploring how to include blogs in their total mix. Similarly, many companies can employ blogs effectively to highly targeted sub-audiences.

We are planning a series of blogs for this year. But, even though we support this new trend, for the foreseeable future, blogs will be *additive* to the total online information flow, not an effective substitute, at least for epublishers.

Let’s explore why we have reached this conclusion.

First, the ordinary person is still not aware of what a “blog” is. Almost *no* typical non-webbie user I speak to at dinners and the like has installed an RSS reader, or knows where to begin, or even clearly understands why they should.

SPAM is not enough of a reason, I’m sorry to say, to change the preferences or email behavior of most ordinary users. Few non-web-specialist people actually get so much spam that they feel they need to receive their newsletters via an RSS aggregator. And, thanks to better filtering by the major free email providers and the various email clients, much SPAM can be eliminated from the ordinary user’s in-box, even without identifying and shutting down the SPAMmers.

RSS can eliminate the problem of email-hosted trojans, worms, and viruses, but this, too, as serious a problem as it has become, will not soon drive the average user to demand RSS for her newsletters or announcements.

Consider that for hundreds of millions, email is still simply the most convenient way to receive messages. The typical user needs to contend with a *variety* of messages each day, including personal ones, newsletters, *desired* commercial reminders and information, *desired* greeting cards and similar pass-alongs from their friends, news updates, and, don’t overlook, often critical update or reminder messages from their suppliers, vendors, software makers, and others.

We “pro” level users also tend to downplay the very large number of users who consciously opt-in for marketers’ information announcements and reminders because they *want* them. And, lest we forget, email remains the best way (in the eyes of the recipients) to deliver most documents and attachments.

There are other reasons, mostly technical ones, that RSS will be, for the time being, an *auxiliary* delivery system, no matter how clever or handy it is for those who are acclimated to the idea of a news reader.

But what about the advantages and simplicity of RSS-based publications? Well, true enough, these are substantial, so RSS feeds will doubtless grow rapidly. For an “always on” type of user, RSS can be a useful tool.

But the typical user is not “always on”. Indeed, perhaps 70% of all web users globally do not even own their own PC. As usage in India, China, and Latin America increases, this proportion will likely *rise*, not fall, in the coming five or ten years, as more and more people go online via schools, community centers, libraries, kiosks, and cafes, to do their limited surfing, research, shopping, and email tasks.

As individual publishers and sellers, we of course need to need to target our intended audiences. So, while it is probably true that most North America- or Europe-based web companies won’t care about the rest of the world’s users, we, as an industry, need to make sure that all potential users are included, so that we can continue to drive audience “reach” numbers up, and drive unit publishing costs down.

The point? So long as email is pervasive, free, and easy to use, it will be (in terms of numbers) the prevalent message distribution medium. It is therefore in everyone’s interest to find better ways to block SPAMmers. And, since I predict email in some form will be with us for many years to come, it will continue to be a requirement for newsletter publishers to offer this form of delivery along with RSS.

DB) What is your opinion about future Internet trends?

DY) What a big question, Dejan! You kindly used the word “opinion” so it would be easy to just throw out any answer. But I have to plan for the future of our group, and we do not have any money to waste, so, actually, I take this question very seriously, every day.

The rapid evolution in interactive advertising formats and media channels is certainly one major trend. The adoption by many hundreds of millions of new users in less-developed regions is another. The migration of web-hosted information to mobile formats is big, for sure.

On the negative side, the explosive issue of poor security is hugely important, from the browser and individual PC, to WIFI networks, to spyware and trojan threats, to phishing schemes, all the way up to ill-protected databases of major credit reporting companies. But this negative trend will, I predict, result in a next-generation approach to operating systems, user data security, and secured networking that, in turn, could actually make Internet use grow even faster.

The problem is that it will take at least five years for this transition to a safer, more confident, less frustrating user experience. The coming few years will see many more problems than viable solutions, I fear. So this will be a barrier that impedes to a degree the growth of the user base, especially among less sophisticated users. At the same time, the security, privacy, and fraud problems are creating hundreds of niche opportunities for specialized sites and software companies. A great example is www.grisoft.com, the small Czech firm that is doing such a great job with its AVG anti-virus product.

Beyond these obvious trends, the most important development I know of is the continuing migration to “interactive communities”. This trend is so important that I have begun writing a book about it.

Online communities are not new, of course. In fact, the original “world wide web” was such a community, one made up mostly of scientists, engineers, teachers, and research specialists. Over the past decade, we have seen numerous communities evolve, ranging from thousands of special-interest sites to dating sites to sports sites to massive portals. Far from exhausting the possibilities, however, we have just begun to develop the various types of venues where people like to come together.

The next wave of evolution will be huge in impact, because it will bring a new generation of geographic communities. These will go far beyond the quaint, quirky, semi-elitist types of online communities such as www.craigslist.org. We will see, in my *opinion*, the beginning of the end of local newspapers, as their advertising and content migrate online, and there, begin to merge with locally-oriented broadcast media. The result will be a kind of community that truly reflects the local interests of most of its members. Unlike the early attempts in this area, these will be economically viable, thanks to targeted interactive advertising.

As these local-centric interactive communities form, we’ll see them focus more and more specifically on the interests of their regular membership. Don’t be surprised to see multiple such communities form in a single geographic area, as users find those they want to interact with on a regular basis, and tend to exclude others. The class and social implications of this trend will be profound, but are too complex to go into here.

Continuing the ideas from the first question, above, as these communities evolve and develop more features and special tools for their specific members, we will see a second wave of advertising budget migration to “online”. This wave will see a large proportion of broadcast media dollars switching from cable and network TV, and especially radio, to interactive channels.

Similarly, we will see many so-called “destination sites” for special interests develop into truly interactive communities. www.ivillage.com is one well-proven model of this trend. Just as with the locally focused communities, we can predict that these “focused interest” communities will steal advertising market share from other media, as they prove their demographic, retention power, and “stickiness”. Specialty magazines are particularly at risk from this trend.

A distinguishing characteristic of these new-generation interactive communities, again, in my opinion, is that they will incorporate “niche” or so-called “vertical search” as an integrated part of the community platform. It makes sense: if a user has already arrived, say, at her favorite cooking community site, and now wants to search for related products or information, there is no good reason she needs to go to a separate search site.

By the way, this move toward “distributed search” is a main reason we designed our new search platform to “fit” gracefully *within* the confines of a third-party “parent” site, even taking on its look and feel, as opposed to the design approach of our own Vivante site.

DB) Please describe your Vivante project?

DY) www.vivante.com is our first entry into the fast-growing
paid-search market.

I believe that in time, users will learn to regularly use three or even more search sites to find the information they need. Younger people are less patient, and think (unrealistically) that one single site, like Google, can meet the finding needs of all people, on all topics.

Vivante is designed to appeal to the premium search user audience. We specifically want to support grown-ups find things that are associated with their special interests.

We think older users have search needs and preferences that are very different from those of the typical younger or web-specialist user. Vivante is therefore concerned with those needs. As a result, we don’t care if most student-level users or technically-oriented people don’t care for our approach. Similarly, searchers interested in “right now” news and sports won’t expect to see that information in Vivante.

The key to implementing our market vision is to have a platform that can be quickly adapted to meet specialized search needs. Vivante is driven by our “find engine” listings management system. What this means in simple terms is that the Vivante site is just one of potentially hundreds of search-based websites, each one aimed at one specific “niche”, but all sharing one very efficient and universally adaptable “listings management platform”.

In time, this flexibility will let us create many problem-specific search-based sites, both for our own group, but also, for third parties. We envision a very powerful shopping site, for example, one that goes far beyond the limited capabilities of Froogle and Shopping.com.

Thanks to our design platform generalization philosophy, we have a powerful navigation toolkit, and can experiment with many ways of helping users find what they want in our database. For example, we are developing a set of “user search preferences” options that provides several “firsts” in this key area.

Our architectural approach also allowed us to develop a “topical mapping” scheme that lets us set up macro- or cross-referential topic groups in a manner of minutes, including updating our search index “on the fly”. This makes it possible to create new “Power Topics” in real time, such as would be useful for bringing together all available information relating to a breaking news story, for example.

Vivante was, as many know, the first search site to solve (in May 2002) the problem of effectively integrating conventional search listings and “local” search listings. Now, “local search” has become the hottest trend in search. But the main engines are still basically adapting Yellow Page-type listings to their platforms. Our design goes deeper than this, building a truly integrated page of results. We do not have any Yellow Page listings, however, but acquiring these is a simple step, if funding is available.

DB) What is your best site?

DY) www.vivante.com is our primary site, and by far the most important one we have built so far. Our www.adjunction.com site, where we sell and service paid search accounts, was also a major effort.

Both sites employ a very complex MySQL database, and both use relatively sophisticated PHP and JavaScript elements that enable us to support the user better.

But our efforts so far are just baby steps.

I have been involved with database design, online queries, and commercial applications for four decades, so, when we turned our attention to finding a better way to help users find web pages online, I had the advantage of having made just about every mistake one can make in this field. At least once!

I expect that we and other designers will find many more new answers that help people find things faster and with less hassles and frustrations.

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Copyright(c) 2005 Dejan Bizinger If you want to reprint this interview
please contact me at dejan [at] bizinger.biz?subject=Re-print

Exclusive interview with Ms. Anne Holland, MarketingSherpa, Inc

2005-03-27T16:17:00.000+02:00

As I said, today I will publish two interviews. The first is with Ms. Anne Holland, president of MarketingSherpa. An 19-year publishing industry veteran, previously served as the Head of Marketing for HollandPhillips Business Media, a $100 million publishing company. She helped launch one of the world's first profitable subscription sites in 1995, and the trade publications Interactive Marketing News in 1994 and MIN's New Media in 1995. Holland founded MarketingSherpa, a privately held media company, in January 2000 with the mission of helping marketers, advertisers and PR pros improve results, by publishing real-world marketing data and Case Studies.

Dejan Bizinger) Your company MarketingSherpa is highly recognized as one of
the best e-marketing resources. What is the secret of your success?

Anne Holland) I wish there was a secret because that would make our work easier! But, it's just very, very hard work and persistence. Everyone asks how we get our exclusive case studies. I find that very funny because it's nothing more than good old fashioned journalism.

DB) You sell many publications in your SherpaStore, both in printed and in PDF version. What is the ratio in buying between printed and PDF books?

AH) Good question! It started out at about 60% printed, 40% PDF. But now five years later it's about 30% printed and 70% PDF. The length of a report can affect things -- some of our reportsare more than 200 pages long and lots of people don't want to print that many pages out.

DB) What is your opinion about future Internet trends?

AH) RSS will not replace email, it's a supplement that has yet to be tested in mainstream. Search marketing will continue to grow substantially as a staple in most marketer's budgets. Email is now fairly steady as a budget item and marketing tactic, I expect slight growth. Same for banners and contextual ads. Rich media and behavioral ads will growth 30% or more in thenext two years and then level off. Wireless ads may finally penetrate US marketplace as the big cellular providers merge. And ecommerce will continue to grow outside the US asinternational consumers learn to trust online and credit cards.

DB) How much do you work daily?

AH) I work pretty typical hours for a president of a publishing company... I get in around 9:15am and leave around 7pm, and don't ever take lunch. Now that we're in our fifth year and fairly established, I only work weekends occasionally. Plus I'll be able to take my first vacation in five years this summer in conjunction with a speaking engagement in Zadar Croatia!

DB) What is the last book you read?

AH) I'm reading several books about Yugoslavia, Serbia and Croatia to prepare for my trip.

DB) What is the favorite reward for yourself?

AH) Hiking in the wilderness and in national parks.

DB) What is your favorite web site?

AH) Mapquest.com - I use it constantly.

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Copyright(c) 2005 Dejan Bizinger If you want to reprint this
interview please contact me at dejan [at] bizinger.biz?subject=Re-print

Welcome to eMarketingBlog.com!

2005-03-25T20:19:00.000+01:00

Hey, everyone! Welcome to my eMarketing Blog!

If you decide to be a regular reader of eMarketing Blog you will read exclusive interviews with the prominent people from emarketing and ecommerce business. Interviews that you won't find anywhere else (except if someone decide to re-print it). This blog is supplement for my email newsletters that I publish and that cover same topics.

I will post two interviews on March, 27. One is with Ms. Anne Holland, founder and president of MarketingSherpa, Inc, and the second is with Mr. David Yancey, founder and president of Vivante search engine.

Now, I will introduce myself in several sentences. My name is Dejan Bizinger and I'm in emarketing business from 1998. Since then I have been involved in several projects and made a lot of contacts, people know my work, and therefore I'm able to get exclusive interviews. If you are interested in my work experience please visit my CV page.

I live in Belgrade, capitol of Serbia and Montenegro. If you a sport fan you have definitely heard about my country, because we have had great results in team sports like Basketball (ex-World Champs from Indianapolis, USA), Soccer (FC Red Star was World Champs in 1991.) Waterpolo, Volleyball... You should definitely visit Belgrade, beautiful city with 2 rivers, great places like Kalemegdan fortress, Ada Ciganlija resort and incredible night life. Belgrade has around 2 million people. If you are interested in beautiful mountains I can suggest you to visit Zlatibor and Kopaonik. Also, you should definitely visit a beautiful resort with the lake on the north of Serbia, very near Hungary. Place is called Palic.

Enough with the tourism, soon we will start with emarketing and ecommerce topics.

I hope that you will be my regular reader.

BTW. If you would like to get mentioned in eMarketing Blog, feel free to contact me at dejan [at] bizinger.biz

Keep bloggin',

Dejan Bizinger, Internet producer
http://dejan.bizinger.biz