The founder and CEO of blogsearch Technorati has announced that he's stepping down from his executive position and installing a team of the company's Vice Presidents to serve as President. In his post explaining the move, Mr. Sifrey notes that their search for a replacement CEO has taken longer than anticipated, while others have noted that Technorati has benefited from several influxes of cash and may be headed toward oblivion because latecomer Google has been eating their shorts with a less functional tool.

I've long held that from the outside, Technorati looks like a good acquisition target for Yahoo! because it matches a lot of the criteria they've used in the past and a simple implementation of contextual advertising could be what the doctor ordered. Though I can speak only for myself, but I'd say that one of the big reasons that Technorati's widgets don't litter the web is because there's no back end from the results. Sure, Google hasn't offered an embeddable blogsearch and you're just left with their plain vanilla service, but if you use it or their "search within this site" functionality, the possibility does exist for you to monetize the results with AdSense.

Of course, Yahoo! is also in the business of contextual ads, plus their blogsearch tool was only available for a while and then it disappeared, or at least I can no longer find it. Nonetheless, it wouldn't take much for them to marry advertising to the Technorati widgets, but they have their own problems at this time and though I still think they should consider the purchase, if somebody were to ask me the solution to Yahoo!'s woes, the acquisition of Technorati would be the somewhere around third on my list.

It's still a good idea and the price is obviously ticking down, but since Mr. Sifrey made his announcement another scenario has popped into my head and because they aren't plagued by an infernal internal memo, it may actually be a more realistic option.

( My Suggestion )

When Yahoo! hit the IPO jackpot, they invested a lot of the extra cashflow into other standalone, web startups and as a result, they took a big hit when the bubble burst. The Google IPO has created a lot more liquidity for the younger search company, but they seem to be putting an inordinate amount of their money and effort into questionable in-house ventures which appear to only enhance the brand and which do not provide obvious income opportunities.

Over the past week, two such endeavors have come to light;

• Yesterday, Google announced that the subjects of a news story may now submit a written response and after the author's authenticity is verified, the response will be posted alongside the original story using AJAX, so a new pageview would not be required and no additional advertising would be displayed.
  
  An example of this setup can be found in relation to a story about McDonalds.



• On Monday, Google announced that they'll be recruiting "Business Referral Representatives", who will be independent contractors that will be paid per verified listing for going to local businesses to collect data like phone number and hours of operation, plus take a photo of the business so that this information could be added to Google Maps.
  
  While in contact with these businesses, the contractors, who could be anyone and anywhere are encouraged to talk-up the functionality of Google Maps and Adwords. Though, none of their pay is tied to the contracting for these services. The only way Google would make a return for this effort is if the business were to purchase Adwords and in my opinion, they may get some sales in markets larger than a hundred thousand, but in the smaller cities of this country, Adwords doesn't seem to make a lot of sense for the average brick and mortar business.
  
  For example, if you punch the name of my town, the postal abbreviation for the state and the word "hardware" into Google, the first three listings are from Google: Local. All three of these businesses belong to a national buying cooperative and their phone number and map position are already displayed.
  
  There's the "Ace", the "True Value" and a "Do It Best"; Two of the three do have freestanding websites which lists the kind of data that Google will be collecting, but they're already linked from the initial listing and an additional link to such a limited site would just be redundant. For shopping, specials or price comparisons, all of the businesses redirect to the national chains where the catalog is more extensive and the database is easier to maintain.
  
  If I were the owner of any of these businesses, I don't see how I could justify buying an Adword. My listing already appears at the top of the Google results and though a geographically-targeted Adword would put another link on the page, I don't see how it would benefit me. There's three hardware stores in this town, much like there's three auto parts stores and two laundries. This situation and these numbers are fairly typical for the smaller markets, so why should Google pay somebody up to ten dollars to collect their phone numbers, which are already in Google anyway because of their lookup service?

As a user, I may get some benefit from these efforts, but the hosted responses to news articles raises legal, ethical and competitive questions. I pretty much know what my local hardware stores look like and where they're located, so since the phone numbers are already listed and their hours are a click away, I can't see any value in the second effort for anyone in a small to mid-sized market.

If I were an investor in Google, it may be time to start questioning the reasoning for these and other ventures because I see only limited return, beyond a simple and non-revenue-producing enhancement of the brand.

Though, if I were unemployed and in need of an income, I'd totally bank some of Google's misguided funds.

(Valleywag and Lost Remote contributed links to this post)

I realize that it's nearing the end of a postastic day, but I really can't delay throwing this out, in case it disappears.

By now, I'm sure everyone has heard about the lite-brite guerrilla advertising which shut down Boston today. Reportedly, the city was thrown because the little cartoon creatures were affixed to visible surfaces and because television blurred the whole thing to obstruct its middle finger, so people watching at home couldn't call the cops and tell them that they're stupid.

(I've never seen Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but the things don't look threatening to me)

Anyway, the fellow who was contracted to install the things and who has since been arrested, he was kind enough to document the installation in a fast-paced, quick-cut music video. And, if you are interested, you can just go to his website and activate the pop-up containing the Quicktime, by clicking on the topmost left image. For anyone who can't do Quicktime, but who might still be interested, the uppermost right image loads a huge gallery of screengrabs from the "mission".

Also, if you have a MySpace and would like to offer Peter Berdovsky a few words of support, you can find his page, here.

And finally, Turner Broadcasting's initial statement;

"The 'packages' in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger. They are part of an outdoor marketing campaign in 10 cities in support of Adult Swim's animated television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They have been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Parent company Turner Broadcasting is in contact with local and federal law enforcement on the exact locations of the billboards. We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger."

(via Lost Remote)

I have a bad habit of not retrieving my mail, except maybe once or twice a week, so I don't know exactly which day the newest Rolling Stone arrived, but I got it from the mailbox around dawn on Thursday and started reading it during CSI. As always, I started at the beginning of the magazine and read through the newsblip parts, first. And, it's there where I saw it, way down at the bottom of page fourteen, under the heading of "Downloading"; "Doors, Zep Sue Over Streaming Shows".

It seems that a memorabilia company has acquired a bunch of rights from Bill Graham's estate, among them are old old t-shirts and handbill designs, but that's not the best part and the reason for this post. To draw potential customers and to help sell their merchandise, they're streaming Mr Graham's vast archive of concerts for free.

There's no way that I could list all of the artists: The Dead, Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Duran Duran, The Cure, The Doors, The Who, Bowie, Bruce, Zappa, Tracy Chapman, B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Muddy Waters; Oh god, I could just go on and on. I mean there's just that many and there are multiple concerts from some of the greats.

In fact, right this very minute, I'm listening to a 1975 Neil Young concert which features two members of his band, plus Levon Helm and two others from The Band, along with Bob Dylan on vocals, piano and a couple of guitars.

Best of all, it only cost a free registration and I could be in heaven for weeks.

• http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com

ETA) Yikes! I don't have the two hours right now, but a 1970 Pink Floyd concert features a 22-minute encore of "Saucerful of Secrets".

Let me see, if I've got this straight.

If I were to enter Ace's "Dream Ace" contest, which they so kindly notified me about via email, it appears these are the steps;

I'll need to begin by taking an online multiple choice test that must be done in a single, forty-five minute session and all the questions must be answered for it to count. Then, I would need to answer three essay questions, using one hundred or fewer words for each response and this too will need to be done in a single online session that can not exceed two hours in length. This process will determine the fifty state winners, one from each state.

Those who move on from this round will go to New York for a thirty minute in-person interview with a select panel of Ace retailers. This interview will consist of questions being taken from a list that will be provided to each contestant.

On the morning following the interviews, Quarter-Finalists will be named and they each will do a ten minute presentation for pre-qualified Ace retailers and former Apprentice, Bill Rancic. The subject of the presentation will be yourself and why you should be named the "top aspiring entreprenuer" and it must be done without aids or handouts. After your individual presentation, you'll be subjected to another ten minutes of questions from the judges.

The next morning, the Semi-Finalists will be named and round four will commence that afternoon.

Survivors at this point in the contest will begin by taking a written sales aptitude test in New York City, then a week later, they'll need to submit a business and marketing plan in Chicago. On the day following their plan submission, all semi-finalists will be required to attend a boot camp at Lou Manfredini's* Ace Hardware Store in Chicago, where they'll be assigned in-store activities and judged on their performance.

Afterward, each contestant will be required to attend an all-day session in the corporate offices, where their performance will not be judged and they will be expected to pay a one-day visit to the location of the prize store. Then, the two highest-scoring finalists will be named and they'll need to attend the company's retailer convention in Las Vegas, approximately one week later.

Oh, and all contestants must agree to and maintain good standing with credit and background checks.

All to win a new, fully-stocked Ace Hardware in Houston with a fifteen year lease, plus $20k in moving expenses.

Does that sound right? Do you think I've got it?
The rules, prize info and actual contest procedure are really in such a skinny screen.

After all, I got the email because I'm a registered customer of my local store, so obviously there's an Ace near my home, which left me wondering after seeing the sparse contest pages; Exactly where would the "prize" be located?

Now, I know.

*"The Helpful Hardware Man"

I'll begin with an amusing commercial for fruit-flavored condoms and then after the jump, a couple of print ads from Switzerland.



( No Money Shots, but May Not Be Worksafe in a Stuffy Environment )

I was reading a nonsense story in Broadcasting & Cable about ABC/Disney withholding clips of Meredith Vieira from an NBC package welcoming her to The Today Show. One would think that with a little publicity, the House of Mouse might relent because as Ms Vieira's agent says, their use would also help promote both The View and the Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? franchise.

The article itself isn't important and wouldn't be of interest unless you're a devotee of the shows, or if you enjoy reading about the competitive landscape of the television business, or if you have two minutes to kill and nothing better to do. The content wasn't what prompted this post. Instead, it was the Google Ads which I've excerpted above and because it didn't always come up on a reload, I've also archived in context for posterity.

I'm not exactly sure which keywords were purchased by the New York Times, but the third AdSense listing links directly to an NY Times story from June 28th about Star Jones Reynolds and because it intrigued me, I did a little experimentation and found that the same ad came up on a random story about Ms Jones on Defamer, which I've also archived with a screencap. This strongly implies to me that "The Newspaper of Record" has bought the term "The View" because Star's name isn't in the B&C piece and Meredith's isn't in Defamer entry, so for some reason, they're willing to pay to attract readers interested in that particular subject.

Dear Auto Salespeople;

I'm not really a hostile guy, but by the third lot and becoming the victim of my fourth swarm, I may be prone to snap.

I realize that you're working on commission and that some of you will not get paid, if I don't buy a car, but what percentage of people walk onto a lot and drive away with a vehicle? I'm going to guess that it isn't very many and most people are like us, they have a list of models they'd like to see and in our case, try-on. After all, we've got all these figures about head and leg room from Consumer Reports, but what do they really mean and how does it fit someone sitting in the backseat?

Through today's effort, we've narrowed our list down to two possibilities. More focused research will be done to compare and contrast these two options. We will also be checking the price difference between new and slightly used, plus now that we're familiar with your promotional packages, we'll be doing the math to determine the best way for us to pay for the vehicle. Sometime next week, we'll probably return to the city for a test drive and at that time, we may be willing to sit down and do the nitty-gritty.

Today was a reconnaissance mission. We needed to look at the actual vehicles and narrow our list. We will be buying something within the next couple of weeks. We've procrastinated too long and we need something larger for our family. No, Mr Toyota Guy, we weren't leaving the lot because we hadn't been assaulted by an over-eager salesperson. We sat in your option, pushed the seat all the way back and my knee was penned into a small area between the console and steering column. All of the vehicles are in a same price bracket, they all get good rankings and similar mileage. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do, if I don't fit.

.	Have a Nice Day and I Have Your Card; discreet_chaos

As my mind has alternated between racing and a zombie-like state, while I've been concentrating on quitting smoking, I've watched a lot of television. I do hope to make a post about some of the good, but right this minute and if you'll pardon the indulgence; I'd like to take a few minutes to mention some of the bad or the questionable things that has risen to my attention.

• For years and years, I religiously watched Days of Our Lives. Way back, when General Hospital wrapped the "Ice Princess" storyline and after Ken Corday had hired some of the GH writers for DOOL, I became enamored with the character of Stephano DiMeara and because they'd use his villainy for sweeps, I'd rotate in and out to watch the stories build. It has now been almost ten years since I had watched Days and I now see that by falling to the wayside, I haven't missed anything. Carrie and Sammie appear to still be fighting over Austin. Lucas is still in the thick of things and it's like absolutely nothing has happened in the interceding decade, except maybe Jennifer's real-life husband might have gotten over her real-life affair with her co-star because she's now allowed to have a storyline boyfriend, who doesn't appear to be gay in real-life.



• I've said it before and now I'm going to say it, again; Joey Greco is perhaps the lowest form of life, known to man. The judgments and pronouncements that this two-bit actor makes on the program Cheaters is a good example of a lot of things that are wrong with this country. He only has a tiny bit of information that was given to him from a one-sided point of view. Besides the fact that his condescending attitude is insulting, I still can't get past the way that they sometimes milk what could be easily explained for dramatic effect, or the occasions when they learn afterwards that the person who "hired" them is actually a stalker, who had deluded themselves into a relationship. Add to this, the way that they always seem to plant a hidden camera in a lesbian co-habitation, which I assume makes it way onto one of their compilation tapes for extra profit and the fact that everything is really a cheap marketing stunt with the program being an inexpensive way to harp products, it just makes me feel dirty every time I flip through and get stuck in a ten minute segment.



• Today's New York Times has a short, but interesting article about infomercials. Among the several bits of knowledge that is shared, we learn that Carlton Sheets has made over $2 billion from his years in the business and though it isn't mentioned in the piece, nor is linked from any of the related "busters" sites; I've been bothered lately by the one that seems to be everywhere for "StopSign" and/or eAcceleration. Basically, it is a subscription service that may or may not be legit, but I'm especially troubled by the repetitive tagline; "Customer support reps right here in the US, speaking your language". I can't tell if the male lead is hiding an Australian or Eastern European accent, but the girl is clearly from behind the Iron Curtain and they both look like porn stars. Some googling shows that the company has been working on their product reputation, but they really aren't helping themselves with the xenophobic angle, the "quality" of their inexpensive actors, or when they're joined by a redneck American who looks like he'd be at home in a low rent casino. The middle-aged, brushy-haired guy doesn't really look like Vegas, but whenever I see him, I jump in my mind to Elko and then I "upgrade" him to Laughlin to be nice.



• BTW: Whenever you see an ad for the crappy new show called Teachers on NBC and they mention "from one of the producers of Scrubs", please keep in mind that they are speaking of Matt Tarses. His father is Jay Tarses who did create a couple of quality shows, but his sister is Jamie Tarses, whom some may remember from a storyline during the latter stages of Sports Night, when they bitched about an executive sticking their brother onto the production staff. At the time, Jamie was President of ABC Entertainment and all indications were that it was her brother to whom the writers were referring. Obviously, they aren't talking about Bill Lawrence and the fact that Teachers is unbearably bad is good evidence of the situation.



• Okay and finally to cleanse the palate and stick with broadcast television; I never seem to be thinking about it at the right time, so I don't really know if there's new episodes of The Vicar of Dibley, but I used to be captivated by Dawn French's humor, when it last run on PBS. Lately, I have been thoroughly enjoying the Sunday night showings of the BBC series called Absolute Power, but judging from the IMDB entry, I may have now seen the whole series. I've also enjoyed the late night showings of Da Vinci's Inquest. I honestly am not sure if these Canadians are supposed to be good looking, but because it's on opposite the syndicated CSI: Weekend, the excellent no-nonsense style of writing, the exceptional character development, plus the quietness and lack of slickness is definitely a charm.

I should start this post by admitting that I also enjoy a bit of Hollywood gossip. There are a couple of tattler sites which I regularly read and I do it mostly because there are real people involved, it gives me glimpses into their lives and occasionally you'll find an interesting story in the mix. Lately, I've been halfway following the Anthony Pellicano investigation because it sounds like the man thought he was Jim Rockford and it's interesting how the Hollywood detective is getting called for doing precisely what television private eyes have done, since the early days of the genre.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of other people who subscribe to this kind of gossip and because of the meanness displayed by some people on the web and outright ignorance by a lot of the masses, it's easy to find things getting too far out of line. To illustrate this point, please allow me to point toward a couple of recent situations.

1. The other day, I ran across some photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt getting into an airplane, where they've supposedly been taking flying lessons. The opening paragraph of the gossip post is focused on the fact that they were headed to St. Tropez for a week of vacation and it not only reminded me of how much I like St Tropez, but it once again spurred me to dream of purchasing a tiny place in the area, a pipedream that I've entertained from time-to-time. It also caused me to think about some of my friends who purchased their own airplanes for the sake of convenience and to do a little googling to see what they've been up to lately. All in all, I'd say that I saw this little tidbit as a simple walk down memory lane.
   
   Included in the post was also a couple of quotes from Micheal Douglas, widely reported to have been taken from the new issue of GQ. Perhaps it shouldn't have been a big surprise, but I was taken aback by the vitriol spewed in the 400+ comments toward Mr Douglas and Jennifer Anniston, plus a lot of back and forth about the couple's parenting skills and personal life. I'm sure that the couple takes a lot of comfort in the familiarity obsessive fans express toward their selves and their union. Also, I wasn't aware that the world is divided in Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt camps, but I know it now. I thought they were simply a couple that might've gotten married a little quickly and had grown apart. Things like that happen in the real world just as it does in Hollywood, but thankfully most people don't have to go through their breakups on the world stage.



2. Due to the fact that a lot of corporate-owned gossip sites don't update over the weekend, a nonsense story based entirely on rumor and innuendo is going to be at the top of the chain throughout the weekend. Personally, I see no connection to any form of reality, except for the fact that a marketing department may not be actively fanning the flames, but they're probably also not going to fully douse them because it wouldn't serve their commercial purpose.
   
   As I understand it, Issac Hayes quit South Park because he felt that they weren't being tolerant of other people's religious beliefs. Matt Stone, one of the creators of the flagging series immediately jumped onto the fact that Mr Hayes is a Scientologist and this information was edited into most of the stories on the subject. I've seen nothing from Mr Hayes connecting his departure to Scientology, but because it's currently vogue to slam that particular belief system, Mr Stone released a statement and provided a couple of quotes that are being treated as gospel.
   
   Supposedly, a repeat of the cartoon's anti-Scientology, Tom Cruise might be gay episode was scheduled to rerun on Wednesday night. Back in January, a week before the series was made available for download via iTunes at $1.99 per episode, a British tabloid reported that the scientology/gay episode was being withheld from UK broadcast due to fears that Mr Cruise might sue and they theorized that it could also be pulled from US rotation for the same reason. When the episode was not rerun on Wednesday night, the internet and some well-placed whispers blamed it on Mr Cruise threatening to not promote Mission Impossible: 3, a film which he is producing on behalf of Paramount, a division of Viacom, parent company to Comedy Central and the producer of South Park, plus the program's distributor.
   
   Both Comedy Central and the spokesperson for Tom Cruise have denied that any threats were made and that the actor had any hand in pulling the episode. Considering the reception that Mr Cruise received when he was promoting his most recent project, I find it pretty doubtful that he has any plans to do a lot of promotion for MI:3, especially considering that the villain in this installment is being played by the recently-honored Phillip Seymour Hoffman. It really makes more sense for him to take the lead in promoting the flick because he'll have two things to discuss. So in addition to the denials by everyone involved and not the rantings of a couple of cartoonists from Colorado, plus a bevy of blogs and commenting netizens, we're really only left with the knowledge that the DVD for South Park: Season Seven has long been scheduled for release next Tuesday.
   
   Internet, I believe you've been pwned.

A newsbreak this morning ended on a lighter note with a story about a Nebraska jewelry store, who is trying to attract male shoppers this holiday season by offering free pizza and beer. When I found a link to a print story, I learned that the particular jewelry store is owned by Warren Buffett's company. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a video, but the tape showed a bunch of guys drinking.

Last night, I saw several ads for holiday shopping at Kay Jewelers. I couldn't help, but think back to a recent conversation and some research materials I've read about the price of gold. If you aren't aware, gold is near a twenty-four year high. The price has been on an upward slope for a while. It started around the time of the last stock market crash and oil prices, currency and inflation fears, plus a bevy of "end-of-the-worlders" have kept it climbing. According to some recent reports, short squeeze is also having an effect.

When I saw the ad and because I'm in the midst of Christmas shopping, I wondered about the price of jewelry. I'll admit that I haven't been in a store and have no intention of buying a bauble, but if I were in the market; I kind of think it'd take more than pizza and beer.

Many of us heard the hype promoting Cyber Monday and though most of the current headlines are reporting the results as being positive, it's mostly in how you measure. Personally, I'm of the opinion that whatever success it's deemed to be is more about how you frame the question, than could easily be illustrated by some simple stats.

According to BusinessWeek, last year an association of online retailers decided that they needed a hook, something that they could use in response to the brick and mortar, Black Friday. It was decided that should focus on the Monday after Thanksgiving, because everyone would be back to work and able to use their faster internet connections to shop. Several possible names were batted around and on the 21st of November, Shop.org issued a release.

The press kit used an assortment of statistics and a few vague generalities; "becoming one of the biggest online shopping days of the year" and "sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving have been creeping higher". I can see nowhere, where it explicitly states that it's really the twelfth busiest online shopping day and that the event was a completely new invention.

Preliminary results show that on Monday, non-travel, online consumer spending increased by 26% or from $386 million to $485, year over year. This is the exact same percentage, online sales increased over the Thursday to Sunday holiday weekend, $737 million to $925. And, though traffic figures aren't yet available for Cyber Monday, preliminary stats for the actual Thanksgiving Day was up almost 19% and on "Black Friday", online retailers reported a 20.9% increase in clicks.

If Cyber Monday is to survive as a marketing tool, merchants are going to have to offer better and more heavily-publicized discounts and I'd say, they'd need to be beyond those pre-Black Friday sales offered on Thanksgiving Day. Though, right now and without knowing how the season will end, if we learned anything from this exercise, it'd be; Issue a press release during the slower holiday buildup and let the media feed on itself, spreading your word through osmosis and possibly causing a better than natural increase.