Bing is in!

So you heard of Bing?!

Like Erick says it in “Go Bing Yourself, Right Now” – “Bing it”  doesn’t have the same ring as “Google it”. Nevertheless, Bing seems to be a good start for Microsoft. I would say, Bing has everything Google has and a bit more, for a layman. Since Google has been ruling the “search engine” roost for a long time, they do have a better algorithm, as of now. But Bing is not bad either, it’s definitely worth a try. I, speaking for myself, liked Bing. And I would beg to differ with the opinion of Seth Godin, wherein he says that Bing is trying to be the next Google. I don’t think so. Bing is trying to be another search engine, rather a decision engine, and not a next Google.

What I like:

• When you get to the video section, you need not click the video and wait for another page to open to view the video. On mouseover, the video plays right on that same page. Saves a lot of clicks!
• In image search, to view more images in one glance, there is an option to reduce the size of thumbnails. But, fear not! that does not affect the clarity of the images, coz on mouseover the particular image zooms in. Nice!
• The tab that appears (on the right side)  on mouseover of a particular search result. This gives an idea of the site that one might visit by clicking on that search result.
• The left tab suggesting “related searches” are really useful.

What I didn’t like:

• I appreciate originality and the ads appearing on the right and the top of the search results, just like Google, is not. They could have thought on it a bit different. Already there is a lot of talk on consumer “ad-blindness” on the right and top. They could have tried Ads on left.
• The search engine algorithm is not as good as Google’s, yet! I’m sure it’ll get better.
• Search for “external hard drive india”, which roughly means that I need to find an external hard drive seller from India.  Bing it (shopping) and Google it (froogle). And you know why Goolge rules the roost. Hope things will change soon.

Bing, you do have more to do and miles to go before you sleep. All the best!

Jayanth

The tab that appears(on the right side)  on mouseover of a particular search result. This gives an idea of the site that one might visit by clicking on that search result.

Selling an idea! HOW??

I have an idea that can make retail giants gain lakhs of customers, if they will be the first one to implement it. Now the problem is: It’s just an idea. How do I market the idea. How do I make sure that it’s not stolen.  Can anyone help me with this? Whom do I pitch it to?

Thanks

Customer Evolution and Google Adwords!

When NOT to advertise through “Adwords”:

1. When the target group is people who are interested in gaining knowledge of the product.

2. When the site is already search engine optimized for the keywords and manage to appear in the first page of Google search.

3. When the target group is not using Google for the first time.

4. When it’s a product which costs more than $500.

Why?!

Because customers have evolved over the period of time. Physically, NO! but Mentally, YES!!

The “Adwords” wave came to the shore, raked up some money and of course, delivered great value in its early period. And the wave is receding now.

A typical product life cycle curve:

In this case,

Product = Adwords; sales = capturing the target audience

the peak of sales was somewhere in 2006, when lot of people still believed that the right hand Ad’s were delivering value and made it easier for a prospect to “buy” what he needed. Even the marketeers across the industry believed that and they continued paying more and more to stay on top. Eventually the customers evolved and realized that the marketeers are paying money to appear on top, which inherently eliminated the value of the ads, and thus the products. And where could they find value?! on the left side “organic search”!!

A recent survey showed less than 5% of the total customers ( the kind that fall into the category given above) have clicked the Ad on the right.

And if the product is in the “declining” phase of the life cycle, why is it still making large revenue?! Because there are still a lot of marketeers who believe that the product is still in its “mature” phase, and they are already hooked!

That is the evolution!

Samuel