Jason+: A Blog about WordThink

Today's New York Times has an article about the frustration of Wall Street with Google . Frustration? How can that be?  Google is a "cash cow," racking in dollar after dollar via AdWords. But there is reason for frustration - a lot - because beneath the surface, Google is actually doing a very poor job as a company . The company has one, and only one, serious source of revenue: AdWords. And that revenue largely comes from the desktop. Other Attempts to Make Money: Not Working Other attempts by Google are not making money.  My favorite to kick: Google Glass.  No money there, and really no real traction for those silly glasses.  Or self-driving cars. We aren't even close to the age of the Jettisons! But what really really irks me is Google Places !  First it was Google Local, and then it was Google Places, and then it was Google+ Local, and now it's Google My Business.  Google has a GOLDEN opportunity with local to compete with the likes of Yelp - f...

Google suggest is a lot of fun. Put in a few words, and look for funny (or sometimes NSWF) stuff.  There is even a website that tracks Google poetry.  I am working on a project in AdWords, looking for negative keywords, and here's what I found -  To find your own use keywordtool.io or check out Google poetics .

There's a Star Trek episode in which the Enterprise enters an alternative universe and an "evil" Kirk emerges onto the ship (The ' Enemy within '). The whole episode is about who is the "real" Captain Kirk: the nice one or the evil one? Creating a Customer From Hell Most of my students think of me as a "nice" guy... But - like most of you - I have my evil streak.  There are certain companies - Verizon, and now HP - that I truly, truly hate. Recently, my HP desktop failed, and I have had to make call after call after call to HP technical support.  They seem unable to fix even the simplest of problems - generating an RMA number and accepting the return for repairs of a computer under warranty - and "run around" is a nice way to describe how I have been treated. I even went to an HP consumer forum and posted a "plea for help," only to have some rude moderator tell me I was in the wrong place!  So HP tech support can...

It's no secret to anyone who's taken an SEO class from me that I have admired the Progressive.com website for its SEO prowess. The (former) website was clean, simple, and followed SEO practices, especially the idea of "link sculpting." The original home page sported header tags, with links down to defined landing pages, and nifty thumbnails. They even had short sentences following subject / verb / object principles. Oh it was beautiful: an SEO work of art. Cometh The Trainwreck Click to see original home page layout. Well, they've revised their home page !  Take a look at it now.  Yikes! First of all, there's TWO Flo's creepily looking out at you, like Flo suddenly has an evil twin. Gone is the SEO simplicity of simple one-click links to landing pages, around defined phrases. Now, instead we have the graphics department run amuck.  Foo-foo graphics, and text simplicity. Whereas previously we linked down to 'Motorcycle Insurance' now we...

Video is huge on the Internet! Rumor has it that YouTube is the #2 search engine, far ahead of Bing, and today Facebook got the limelight with an announcement that it, too, is moving heavily into video. In fact, creating a compelling (viral? shareable?) video is a great marketing strategy for any non-profit or business.  Just witness the ice bucket challenge, or dear future mom. Useful Links for Marketers on Video Beyond having a concept for a great video (note to self: the videos that get shared are emotional - funny, sad, sentimental, shocking), where can you post and share your video?  Here are some useful links -  YouTube. I think of YouTube as the "foundation" of a video strategy. You just gotta have a YouTube channel, and you just gotta upload videos to YouTube.  Learn more here . Facebook. Facebook isn't so much a place to "store" videos as it is a place to "share" videos. You can read their latest announcement here , and a New York...

Humor and marketing ... go together... But sometimes it's a pretty cynical humor. Here are two sites I've come across lately that are pretty funny and have some relationship to marketing... Site #1 - Tom Fishburne: Marketooner Mr. Fishburne is a very funny cartoonist, and he takes his wicked wit and points it at the hypocrisies of the marketing profession. I especially like his latest spin on the ALS " Ice Bucket " challenge -  @ http://tomfishburne.com/2014/08/icebucket.html Google Poetics Another website that's pretty funny (but apparently died in June) is Google Poetics at http://www.googlepoetics.com/ . 

OK, I get it. I wrote a headline that ended in a preposition. Shout out and apology to my High School English teacher Mrs. Kimrey: SORRY! But Instagram is here to stay, up and coming, and definitely a social network that we marketers should pay attention to (oops... sorry another preposition). Instagram has a new service out called Hyperlapse for video. Instagram Fun Some Instagram fun, first: Check out this time-lapse video of a woman's pregnancy journey . Short, sweet, tells a story. Oh, oops that's on VINE , Twitter's product. So what we mean is that short videos... can be very fun, powerful, interesting .  Funny short videos, marketers? Here's a short video on Instagram, by Rachelarich , who writes, My first #hyperlapse of this week's brilliant issue of @fabmagpics, out with @thesun on Sunday. The #selfiestick is sooooo last week So marketing TODO's for Instagram: Explore Instagram as a user. Set up an Instagram account for your busine...