tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:51:06 +0000http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/chris.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)Blogger108125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-7735197612644917328Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:56:00 +00002008-07-28T11:46:25.162-06:00Yahoo Search Marketing looks like they are moving ever so slightly away from Match Driver. "To give advertisers more control over their ads, we plan to remove a limited number of keyword mappings on July 29, 2008. " Match Driver is their system for matching synonyms and plurals of certain phrases together into one bidding group. For instance, if you wanted to bid on the keyword "timeclock" andhttp://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2008/07/baby-steps-to-ending-match-driver-lets.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-8402445006846275359Thu, 15 May 2008 15:22:00 +00002008-05-15T09:26:48.468-06:00Here's an interesting site for you word lovers out there. Word Spy is devoted to : "lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren't "stunt words" or "sniglets," but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other recorded sources." Here's one that I've experienced myself at times: semisomnia n. Mild but chronic exhaustion http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2008/05/interesting-site-for-wordies.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-2306774992475384029Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:06:00 +00002008-04-15T12:18:35.273-06:00One interesting site mentioned in this morning's keynote was SearchMe.com. They are taking the same kind of idea that I've seen before--giving you a preview of the sites that appear in a search box--but to a whole new level. Rather than a small little badge preview, they show the search results in categories of Apple Cover-Flow style result sets. Pretty cool, and something I think I'll actuallyhttp://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2008/04/adtech-san-francisco-keynote.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-8663459760470473816Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:39:00 +00002008-02-22T08:47:32.937-07:00We're now dominating the market for the phrase Xanadaculous! The one and only top position: http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2008/02/top-position-in-24-hours.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-9136723953923525690Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:09:00 +00002008-02-21T15:29:24.240-07:00xanadaculousOccasionally we're asked our opinion of certain marketing companies out there who seem to make fantastic claims for incredibly low prices. Claims like "guaranteed top search positions" for a low low price. Two questions that come to mind are : Top positions for what phrases? Generally achieving top positions for obscure terms is pretty straight-forward. Most site owners probably have a number http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2008/02/guaranteed-top-positions-for.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-238736711822155628Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:57:00 +00002007-12-18T18:39:28.321-07:00This afternoon I decided to take a trip down memory lane. For me, that means cleaning my desk. Tucked into the nooks and crannies I found all kinds of little reminders of past projects and people we've worked with. I also found that the little mouse we found in our office last year apparently had a vacation home in the back of drawer #2 (we eventually caught the little fellow with this trick).http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/12/10-years-on-what-have-we-learned-in-seo.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-264435958045733163Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:39:00 +00002007-10-26T15:04:28.495-06:00A month ago I asked Yahoo! for three wishes that would make my life working with them so much easier. One month later, a wish has been granted. I have to give them props for granting me my wish to opt-out of certain partners. Guess what Blurit.com? Gravy train is over! Yahoo must be getting serious, someone from their agency services team actually pro-actively called us the other day. I http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/10/wish-granted.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-6953167499514726227Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:24:00 +00002007-10-26T14:32:03.284-06:00See you there next week. I'm looking forward to a lot of back-to-back sessions filled with practical real-world details. I'll let you know how it goes.http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/10/marketing-sherpas-b2b-demand-generation.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-1603367683346117367Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:19:00 +00002007-09-20T10:39:36.895-06:00Yesterday HitWise came out with their monthly rankings of search volume by engine. According to them, Google now has 64% of the U.S. search market. The top 4 looked like this: Google: 64.0% Yahoo: 22.9% MSN: 8.0% Ask: 3.5% That leaves just 1.6% for everyone else. It just so happens that yesterday I came across an email I'd sent to a client with the top 20 search engines in 2001: Search http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/09/search-engine-rankings-from-2001.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-6182052755998776975Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:05:00 +00002007-09-20T10:45:47.953-06:00A few months back Yahoo launched Panama, their long awaited update to their sponsored search management tool. And, while I think most would agree that it is an improvement over the old system, they did not address a few critical areas. So Yahoo!, for your own good, and mine, grant me these three wishes: 1. Get rid of "match driver". Six years ago GoTo.com, Yahoo Search Marketing's ancestor, http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/07/yahoo-grant-me-these-three-wishes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-6963440533387016815Wed, 02 May 2007 15:56:00 +00002007-05-02T10:08:52.850-06:00It's been interesting to see some of the response to last night's Digg takeover. Quite a few people have said it is an example of mob rule, deplorable, evidence that Digg is not really a "community", and so on. The interesting part of all this to me is that: It is a lesson in damage control gone awry. Clearly if your entire rights management scheme relies on keeping one bit of information http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/05/thoughts-on-digg-hd-dvd-event.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-8360130168958438869Wed, 02 May 2007 13:52:00 +00002007-05-02T07:54:25.127-06:00Kevin Rose threw his lot in with the diggers themselves last night with this response.http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/05/kevin-rose-joins-rebellion.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-235639938483238651Wed, 02 May 2007 04:29:00 +00002007-05-01T23:23:01.209-06:00A very interesting lesson was delivered tonight about who actually owns a social media space. Like a few million other people I've been known to get sucked into one story after another on Digg.com. Those stories are like crack for the curious. Earlier today a story popped up on Digg about a post on blogger that had been removed because of a complaint from the AACSLA (Advanced Access Content http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/05/digg-user-revolt.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-8958308370297644351Wed, 02 May 2007 04:20:00 +00002007-05-01T23:28:51.420-06:00This was my fourth year as an official blogger for ad:tech San Francisco. Thank you to Steve and Tig at Adrants and MarketingVox for the invite. Ad:tech is the world largest digital marketing conference, with a full suite of sessions and a very large exhibit hall. I've added my posts from this year to my personal adtech blog. All of these originally appeared (and still appear) on adtechblog.com.http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/05/postings-from-adtech-2007.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-1859134649692076252Fri, 20 Apr 2007 18:39:00 +00002007-04-20T13:11:03.910-06:00It's interesting when you hear a bit of news that goes against long time widely held perceptions. Comscore has come out with a report that shows, among other things, that there is very little difference between deletion rates for first and third party cookies. What's more interesting is that the study shows 27% of users delete all cookies once a month, and 7% do it once a week. So, that could http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/04/no-difference-between-1st-and-3rd-party.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-4188793911745151559Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:59:00 +00002007-04-17T18:15:35.097-06:00There is an interesting article on the top web application vulnerabilities here. Pretty good. Although it has been pointed out that these numbers come from already identified vulnerabilities. Here's a nice chart from the article: Go here for more.http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/04/86-vulnerable-to-cross-site-scripting.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-597883276932250206Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:50:00 +00002007-04-17T17:58:16.593-06:00Take a look at this really interesting flash application. http://tools.google.com/gapminder/ A really fascinating way to compare various economic and social stats by country. I love that this is an example of an extremely useful flash app. The functionality of the tool really does aid understanding of the subject, and it is easy to use. Good job. Click China and then hit the "play" button http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/04/great-example-of-data-rich-flash.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-3998544330064113786Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:02:00 +00002007-04-04T16:56:37.167-06:00A couple of days ago we were in a meeting with a client, and we were talking about site usability and the kind of impact a required registration form might have on site visitors. Now, one of the basics tenets of site usability is that the more hoops you force a user to jump though, the less often they will complete a given task. We've seen many, many examples of this over the years, but I thoughthttp://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/04/optimizing-form-conversion-rates.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-6643999954696884449Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:05:00 +00002007-03-20T09:10:35.057-06:00 Take a look at this interesting map of spam origins on the DiscoverMagazine.com site. Go here for the full world map: Map of the Spam World The web spam filtering company Postini developed the map. I guess all those people in Alberta just have a lot of free time on their hands?http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/03/spam-origins-map.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-173519181920211797Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:32:00 +00002007-03-19T10:56:07.200-06:00So we were chatting about how popular the phrase "DashBoard" is these days, and I think we coined an important new term: GasBoard A "Business Intelligence Dashboard" used primarily to inflate the results of a campaign. There's always a metric that will show and program in the best light. If it's not sales, then maybe it is brand awareness or intent to purchase. Just configure your dashboard http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/03/web-21-terminology.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-3142324220733848942Mon, 19 Mar 2007 03:04:00 +00002007-03-18T21:10:25.352-06:00So I pulled up the Battlestar Galactica site to see if the 8:00 episode would be replaying later tonight...and it's hacked. It looks like this guy in Turkey is doing some kind of automatic exploit on Windows servers. Just today, he has successfully defaced over 20,000 sites. Take a look at these stats: Sites Hacked by aLpTurkTegin P.S. If you haven't seen Battlestar Galactica, you can't judgehttp://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/03/speaking-of-web-security.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-1682473384225906956Sun, 18 Mar 2007 21:58:00 +00002007-03-18T16:09:39.678-06:00In the last few months, I've learned quite a lot about web application security. Not to say that my knowledge is comprehensive--this is a topic where the more you learn, the more you realize you need to know. One of the very best blogs I've found on the topic is RSnake's ha.ckers.org. Always a fresh article, lots of good links, and very readable for a fairly technical topic. It is worth checkinghttp://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2007/03/reading-that-will-keep-you-up-at-night.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-116413101852022235Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:30:00 +00002006-11-21T10:43:38.566-07:00Yahoo is in the process of upgrading some sponsored search accounts to their new "Panama" system, but one result may be a loss of control over the bidding process. In speaking with Yahoo about potentially upgrading some of our accounts we learned that while the new system will not allow bidding for specific position, there will be no fundamental change to the way positions are determined when http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2006/11/phantom-bidders-in-yahoos-panama.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-116196300452849698Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:26:00 +00002006-10-27T09:36:02.886-06:00Last night I pulled 20k names from a B2B mailing list to compare the most popular services. These are all from B2B leads generated in the last 4 months. Here are the top six: #1 : Yahoo.com - 9.2% #2 : AOL.com - 6.2% #3 : HotMail - 5.7% #4 : Gmail - 2.3% #5 : Comcast - 1.6% #6 : SBCglobal - 1.6% BellSouth and MSN were #7 & #8 with 1.3% each. So, as expected there are far more users of http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2006/10/email-services-for-b2b-audience.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6969894.post-116191855012629861Fri, 27 Oct 2006 02:58:00 +00002006-10-26T21:09:10.140-06:00I was recently digging through a client's mailing list, curious to find out what mail services they use (and we should be testing). This was culled from about 18k names: #1 : Yahoo.com - 31% #2 : Hotmail - 12% #3 : AOL - 7% #4 : Google's Gmail - 5% #5 : Comcast - 2.1% #6 : MSN - 1.8% This was from a very non-business oriented list. I'm sure the composition would vary for a B2B site. http://www.cogbox.com/blogs/2006/10/6-most-popular-email-services.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (chris)