Kate Morris

I’ve heard from a number of people in the industry that the new CEO of Ask has been contacting them trying to get them back as brand ambassadors. Smart move? Yes. Executed well? No.

The CEO, if he isn’t already, needs to be reading Seth Godin’s blog. If he is already, I would suggest not skimming the entries. Why? It looks like he got the concept - the company made a boo-boo, and he knew that many influential bloggers we mad. So he reached out to them.

What did he miss?

1. He insulted most of them in an article on Forbes.
2. He missed meetings.  (can’t say who with, they like their twitts anonymous)
3. He missed the entire point they had all been making.

Why do I talk about Ask so much? Well they keep giving me reasons to AND I still think they have some great people with some great ideas. Remember my idea of an Ask/Yahoo deal? Well I have one thing to say to the Ask.com employees:

Yahoo is hiring.

Go take your ideas to a company with a greater following and the infrastructure to top the industry. Yahoo is hurting, but I think with the right ideas (the kind we see at Ask) they can take off again. I know the executives at Ask wanted Yahoo bought out, but that was just for PR purposes. We all know that was and still is a BAD idea.

UPDATE: Few more articles as of late. One is from The Lisa about Ask’s attempts with her. And the other is about how they are outsourcing various areas, to Microsoft no doubt. *sigh*

Funny, I started this post in Seattle and with the blog move, never got back to it. Now Rand has gone and done so much better, but I still have somethings to say about all this.

I recently asked Matt Cutts about topics he thought I might research for my Master’s thesis. I thought paid linking and he said it was going to be sooo 2007. I disagreed because I had seen so many people still doing it. When we got to Seattle, what I said was backed up.

Now I am a seasoned veteran of sorts in this space. Not a leader by any means, but I’ve been around the block a time or two. Hearing black hat things at the show did not bother me, I enjoying hearing some of them. It was more something Jay Young said: “We are marketers not moralists.” Jay is a smart man, and a great guy from what I hear, but that kind of thinking is so irritating to me.

I almost left business a few years ago. I was tired of the BS, the backstabbing, and the greed. I wanted to be somewhere that I could use my talents for the betterment of other people, not myself. Does that make me pathetic or a bad marketer? I don’t think so. It makes me a good person. And I really don’t like being made fun of for it.

But the rest of his speech made some good points about fear. No one should fear Matt Cutts. No one should fear link brokers. They all have their jobs, and they are not out to mess with anyone else. Matt does what he does for society as a whole. Trying to give them the most unbiased answers to their questions. Putting the small company on the same playing field as the big ones. The internet is not about who has the bigger marketing budget and that is what I see as Google’s standpoint.

But the link brokers are just helping small companies play the games that the search engines set up themselves. Links are needed and they are helping people get them. Is paid linking going to die totally? No. But should the search engines stop trying to discount them? No. That is their job, they are going to do it. This industry is risky at times. It’s like gambling, if you want the short term fast results you have to put a lot on the line. And sometimes, and more recently a lot, you get burned, bad. That’s the game.

Fear shouldn’t have a place in our industry - good business sense, ethics, and all that should. Do your job the right way, and with some patience, the best results will win out.

The session this morning is kinda bare, and the room is still very cold. But the topic is close to my heart. Since I work in a financial industry, the recession has hit my business very hard. I don’t have multiple clients so I can’t compare like others and these guys are really focusing on agency side. I’ll explain more later.

This recession is here. I don’t know via US numbers overall, but in the workplace it’s definitely there. In Austin we have seen multiple large employers do massive layoffs. You don’t really feel it until you or a loved one loses their job.

As a search marketer, I know that search marketing doesn’t get hit as hard, and may actually grow some, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t impact us. I think we have had to tighten down in making sure that we are using the extra money we are given. The C-levels are moving money our direction and we have to do better at making that money count. So I think this recession has helped Search Engine Marketing, but increased our workload at the same time.

Now one of the questions they are asked is in this environment where do you put your first dollar? Most of the panel speakers are talking to agency people. “Spend your first dollar getting to know the client” For those of us in house, we know our company, and at an advanced conference we’ve done the SEO basics by now. I think it varies depending on the industry, but in this market you can’t wait 3 months for SEO changes to really take effect. Any new campaign is going to need paid to hold it up while the “SEO Basics” get going. But that’s just me.

I think EricLander got it right with this twitter and ScottPolk with this. The keynote was all about a political speech from Microsoft. All bark, and no bite. We all hope they listen to what we had to say at the end but I doubt it. Want the real recap? See Lisa’s interp.

First off, Kevin says that their advertising is the key. But their platform sucks and the fun part was we told him that at the end. The attendees all complained about various things like an external editor (which they HAVE, and I want to test, but we’ll see if it matches AdWords Editor). We’ll see how far the suggestions get.

Word of the Day: Entrenched
Kevin: Google is entrenched, we need to be that other competitor. We care about the end user and are the underdog.
My Thoughts: Microsoft is entrenched in the rest of the digital world and they are bitching about Google being the big dog? Please!

Microsoft Focus: Commercial
Read: We are paying for people to use us. (Hey Danny made fun of it too!!)

So is MSFT going to be focusing on the buyer and letting Google be the information engine? Sounds about right actually. But remember, people look before buying. And few of the 6.6 billion people in this world are going to know that they can get the right info at Google and then get paid by MSFT. Again I say (and I shouted earlier), fix the algo first.

Second Buzz Word of the Day: User Experience
My thought is that there is none. And most everyone at SMX agree with me. How can you point to user experience as a focus/strength when you have no users??

Then there was talk about The Yahoo deal. I loved this, they were looking for a “fast and friendly” deal. Pwtth. Ha. That was followed by the best comment of the day. SRSLY. Kevin says IE is better than FF. I can’t even tell you how many twitters showed up when he said that. Dude, MSFT copied FF for IE7 and badly. Quit making all the developers in here laugh. Hell, Lisa almost choked on her non-existent bagel.

Come on MSFT, I get good results from you - focus on what makes us happy! Don’t tell me you are investing in a world class ad platform. When I see results from that I’ll believe you. Until then I’m not holding my breath.

As I was blow drying my hair this morning (which takes a while), I was thinking about the conference and why I am so excited. I’ve told a lot of people to read this blog for my updates, so hi everyone! And I also know that a lot of people are reading these through the SMX Advanced social tool. That’s part of why I wanted to write this.

I am so excited because I not only get to learn from some insanely smart people, but this year I fell like I know more people. I won’t just be there, I’ll be there having fun. I know lots of people think that this year can in no way match last year, but for me it will. I had a blast last year, but I know this year can top it.

I’m looking forward to the new debates, the new friendships, and the ideas I can gather for the new position I’m in. A new industry always brings new challenges.

So to Eric and everyone else with the kick ass jobs of the world who get to go to these things all the time, get ready. It’s the new blood and the new questions that make every year different.

And I still think we need birthday cake for the year celebration of the SMX series.