Google has announced a major update that will affect the ranking of web pages in Google’s index. In contrast to the usual algorithm updates, this update will be much bigger because it changes the way Google works behind the scenes.

In another recent acquisition, Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has added the radio advertising services company, dMarc Broadcasting, to its portfolio for USD102 million in cash.

According to the media release, dMarc connects advertisers directly to radio stations through its automated advertising platform. The platform simplifies the sales process, scheduling, delivery and reporting of radio advertising, enabling advertisers to more efficiently purchase and track their campaigns. For broadcasters, dMarc’s technology automatically schedules and places advertising, helping to increase revenue and decrease the costs associated with processing advertisements. The company serves thousands of stations across all US markets and formats.

The dMarc platform will be integrated into AdWords, which Google’s Tim Armstrong, vice president of Advertising Sales claims “will bring new ad dollars and accountability to radio”.

Is Arbitron (NYSE: ARB) next? With annual revenues of USD310.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2005, this would be a not insubstantial play.

The next question for the future of personal media is, with real traction in terrestrial radio, how long before we can expect a Google AdWords podcast advertising play, where measurement is inherently simplified compared to terrestrial?

Affiliate Marketing is by far, one of the easiest ways to make money online. It is a revenue sharing business relationship between the affiliate who agrees to promote the products or services, and the merchant who offers them.

The affiliate advertises the merchant’s products and services and gets a commission for …

Online press releases have become a popular because some webmasters think that they can increase the search engine rankings of their web sites with them. Do online press releases really help your search engine rankings? How can you benefit from these services?

Telecom-related Fidelity Select funds continue to show a liking for domestic telecom-service providers while turning a cold shoulder to foreign wireless providers.

I’m preparing for a presentation at the OutSell Executive Leadership Council Meeting in Sarasota FL this weekend. My topic is The State of Web Marketing. Unfortunately, all the speachwriters who are really good at bluster and bullsh*t are already busy, so I’m having to prep myself.

I’ve come across two quotes that are impacting my thinking as I pull this together:

“Marketing and innovation are the two chief functions of business. You get paid for creating a customer, which is marketing. And you get paid for creating a new dimension of performance, which is innovation. Everything else is a cost center.” - Peter Drucker

“But what YOU DO have control over is whether or not you’re holding the smartest conversation on the planet about the market you’re in, bar none. And once you do, the need to market evaporates.” - Hugh @ gapingvoid.com

Defining marketing as ‘creating a customer’ is brilliant and typical Drucker. How do you create a customer? It seems to me that there are three variables:

* DEMAND - Do they want what you have or can you make them want it?
* SUPPLY - Can you convey the attractive qualities of your offering, or is it so good you don’t even have to?
* ACTION - Is the process of doing business with you easy enough, and can you inspire the necessary confidence so that they pull the trigger?

It’s interesting that the driver can be push or pull. If people want it badly enough, the product and the purchase process can be horrible. They’ll seek it out buy it anyway. (As with airline tickets) If they don’t want it you can ‘create demand’ via the various tricks the industry has perfected over the last few decades. (Like that folding table sold on late night TV). If demand is tepid, great marketing communications can help customers decide to buy. If demand is strong, it can be impossible to get any details at all and yet things will fly off the shelves.

All of these forces and options come into play in the ‘online version’ of marketing. The friction of the buying process is no longer the physical process of locating the product, now it’s the tangle of ‘registration screens’ or complexity of adding multiple items to the shopping cart. The generation of confidence is no longer the physical address or look in the eye of the sales person, it’s customer reviews and Truste logos.

Most of online marketing is about ‘finding the demand’ with organic and paid search, email and affiliate marketing, banners and whatever else. The remainder (though discussed far less frequently) is the development of a site that communicates effectively (from the viewpoint of each individual visitor) and makes the transaction process easy. The right methods and tactics for these fills millions of web pages, and book shelf space, and will fill a good part of my upcoming talk.

But the Cluetrain crosses both sides of these tracks :-) and Hugh’s brilliant comment points that out. A smart conversation is a magnet. A smart conversation is complelling and convincing. People talk about a smart conversation, especially if it’s not too late for the people they’re telling to come and watch or join in. People don’t leave a smart conversation to go to a lesser one. Smart conversations create customers.

Smart conversations aren’t the state of online marketing. But they should a big part of it’s future. Thanks to Peter Drucker for clarifying what we’re trying to do, and to Hugh MacLeod for suggesting a great way to do a larger part of it.

Social Marketing in the News

Oil Company Boosts Anti-malaria Campaign in < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Cameroon

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Cameroon Oil Transportation Company (COTCO) has decided to give a subsidy of 175 million FCFA to help lower the cost of insecticide-treated mosquito nets… COTCO proposed the project for the promotion and distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and its kit all over Cameroon, which [is] funded by the Exxon Mobil Foundation. The Cameroonian Social Marketing Association (ACMS) is the project`s executing agency.   …Cameroon`s ACMS, which was created in 1989, is engaged in the prevention of malaria and HIV/AIDS, family planning and in fighting diarrhoeic and water-borne diseases.

UNESCO-funded ‘Shahi Qila Week’ Begins on January 22

A five-day ‘Shahi Qila Week’ funded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is scheduled at Lahore Fort [Pakistan] from January 22 to January 26, Punjab Archaeology Department (PAD) sources told Daily Times on Monday.

The cultural mega-event aims to impart awareness about the World Heritage site and is the first of its kind organised by the PAD.

The details of the event were worked out in a meeting held at PAD’s office on Monday, in which Cultural Officer Farhat Gul represented UNESCO…The meeting discussed various aspects of social marketing and promotion of archaeological sites and was informed that PAD Director General Oriya Jan Maqbool took the initiative.

Town Unveils Conservation Resource Library

The Town of Cochrane [Alberta, Canada] unveiled the first Conservation Resource Library Tuesday, located in a section of the Nan Boothby Memorial Library.

“The primary purpose of creating and maintaining the Conservation Resource Library is to provide Cochrane residents with greater access to resources about how to be better stewards of our environment,” said Lisa Fox, Water Conservation Coordinator for the Town.

The library is part of the community-based social marketing strategy the Conservation Team is focusing on.

“It includes face to face marketing, which was the door-knocking, broad-base marketing, which we do through the newspapers and releases, and hands-on, the library,” Fox said.

More News and Commentary is posted at On Social Marketing and Social Change.

Recent notes include: Social Marketing and the Policy Maker Audience; The Red Herring of Self Esteem?; and Fast Company’s 2006 Social Capitalist Award Winners. 

Pricing power, consistent execution, and industry consolidation provide a favorable mosaic for the insurance group.

OK, I’m not sure where this post is going to go, so help me out with a comment or two and we’ll see where the conversation takes us.

I’ve noticed that the free time I think I have, and the free time I actually have are quite different. The delta is significant enough to be called my “imaginary free time”.

Why is this important? Because the things I buy are still centred around consumption within imaginary time - I frame my purchasing decisions based on what I’d really like to be able to spend my time on. Do you have any of these symptoms?

How is this relevant to personal media? First of all, things that enable the conversion of imaginary time into (real) free time are going to win out against things that eat away at your free time. PVR functionality will be a commodity offering from all major Internet brands.

Yahoo!’s Go TV (image courtesy http://go.connect.yahoo.com/go/tv)

Google doesn’t need to acquire TiVo to build Google TV, but it would give it a nice installed base. For advertisers relying on untargeted mass media, the irresistible forces of broadband, home networking, cheap storage and free PVR software all mean one thing: don’t bother with interrupting us, we’ve got better things to do with our precious free time. Instead, think about life after the 30-second spot, and about how you can really contribute toward helping us cash in some of our imaginary time for real free time (in other words, having more time to do some of the things you really want to do). And that may be spending time on creating our own content - from photos and videos of the baby, to blogs and podcasts, personal media consumers are likely to become more selfish with each successive generation of content creation tools.

All the products that you want to sell online are ready. You have already signed up with the Google Adsense program or with other affiliate marketing programs and you have already prepared the ad you want to post on your affiliate’s site. Your mind is now set to …