Just wanted to post a link to where I am blogging now. I feel this format has gotten to be too much for me to handle with work so I am switching to the more flexible Posterous format. Here is the new URL.
Winston Churchill once said, “There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.” So would that thought in mind this blog is going to change yet again. For the past couple years, I have been writing my thoughts and ideas on digital marketing and my industry. Its been a great ride and I have taught myself so much but with every great learning comes a new one.
That new learning is that my infrequent blogging habits have gotten even less frequent. So with that in mind, I am going to suspend activity on the blog except for the occasional rant or posting. I may also move this over to the domain stemato.com/blog in the coming days and attempt to make my TLD more about me.
Why?
Because life is about change. We change jobs, apartments, food, clothes and just about our minds daily. And as I have learned the digital marketing world from display ads to search one thing has always been missing and its design.
When I was in college I learned design from top to bottom. Much of it was concentrated on making pretty pictures. So when I graduated I struggled to understand the concepts of design holistically and how the fit those it into the rest of the digital world. I only wanted to make pretty things.
Boy! Was I confused 
There fore, I am going to change my website so that I can soak in more of my creative side and take myself down a new path. How am I going to do it? I am not sure yet but stay tuned…
With the growth of computers also came the growth of naming and the ever perplexing decision of what to call a file you created. I remember back when I was a art director we had strict naming conventions for all files built. They were required to have certain variables in them that would help anyone working on the file to locate and eventually work on them. Now that I have moved over to the client side of things its a bit different. I deal with an exponentially larger number of files and there is no required variable on these files. So I thought I would offer up a few easy rules to help you keep and sort your files easier.
By following these three simple rules you can greatly increase your efficiency when trying to locate a file. And we all know that can be an issue sometimes. So happy hunting!
budget planner – Mint.com
Some really interesting news in the holiday season. Enjoy!
I meant to post this a couple days ago but here it is. I saw that Bing is posting live real time stats for NBA players as they score. Did anyone else notice this? I think its excellent and a great step forward in real-time search; an area I think Google is particularly lacking in.
Digital marketing has ushered in a new wave of analytical marketing where everything can be measured right down to the click. But unfortunately its is not without its faults and the issues come in all different shapes and sizes. Everything from complex coding to simple human error is common place. And in my role at Microsoft Advertising, I see a wide variety of these issues ranging from the mundane to the utterly complex.
One of the most common errors I see that leads to more client headaches than any is publisher implementation. These varied errors cause more wasted time than any other type of error when investigating differences between publisher and client. The good news is they almost always can be prevented by a little thought and preparation before hand.
Here are a few simple and easy rules to make sure your tag is implemented correctly.
This is certainly not all the possible implementation issues I have come across in my time. However, I would say it accounts for the bulk of them. Not to mention, its always a terrific idea to QA these first and foremost as you can almost always save yourself some time on the back-end when your reporting shows up with gaps. Hopefully this provides a good starting point for publishers and advertisers alike and happy implementing!
Last week, I went to the NASDAQ to attend the Microsoft closing bell ceremony. It was quite an honor and a great way to spend my afternoon. Not to mention Windows 7 is a great product! I have been using it for a couple weeks now on my work PC and its really sharp. It is so much easier to use and packed with great features that have made me more productive at work But I digress.
I don’t want this to be a shining endorsement of Windows 7 but a congratulations to all the folks who put such hard work into turning out this product. It was truly an honor for me to be able to represent you as a fellow Microsoft employees at the NASDAQ for the closing ceremony!
PS- Can you spot me in the Photo?
In the past I have used my blog as a forum to both praise and criticize my college. Well today, I am proud to say that I am a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. Why do you ask? Well, I was reading Bruce Nussbaum’s Innovation Design blog and I noticed that Businessweek had ranked the world’s top design schools. That is right I said WORLD’s Top Design schools. And SCAD was amongst the handful of North American schools that were chosen.
So without further adue, I will let SCAD shine today. Congrats Savannah College of Art and Design and thank you very much for the top notch education that you gave me. I am forever indebted to you.
Here is a link to the SCAD section.
Here is a link to all the College chosen.
I wanted to write a quick thought I had about the relatively new Facebook Highlights section. I have been using the new redesign for quite awhile now and for the most part its still as annoying as it was when it rolled out. I do like some of the features but the chat is still horrendous, the constantly updating feed is distracting and photos are harder to upload. But the one thing that is so annoying and just a complete waste of good website space is the ubiquitous Hightlights section.
It sits on the right hand side of your screen eschewing more useless information than the United Nations at a security counsel meeting discussing Iran. Have you hidden folks from your normal feed? Not to worry they will eventually find their way to your highlights section! Its kind of like the kid you don’t invite to your party but he shows anyway.
Before I start to rant too much. I wanted to mention a curious behavior I noticed about this feature. It has become so useless to me that I have developed a form of banner blindness to it. I barely if ever even take a glance at it and even click on the links less.
Oh - how I wish I could just turn it off or replace it with some relevant advertising…
Lately, I have been reading tons of data about everything from ad revenue plummeting to the health care verticals fast exit from the search business. All the data we have provides us with supposedly crucial insights into the current state of situations within our economy or otherwise. But lately, I have wondered if we have so much data that it is starting to contradict itself. For instance, what does it mean when Comscore says Google has 77% marketshare? Is that even true? What does it mean? Does it mean that only 3 out of 4 searchers use Google?
Then I read this article in the Wall Street Journal that left out a crucial point about the data it cites. In it he states, “Display-related advertising–which includes display ads, rich media, digital video and sponsorship–totaled nearly $3.8 billion in the first six months of 2009, a 1.1% decline from the same period in 2008, the IAB said.” While this may be a decline from year over year spend, it neglects too mention that CPM prices have plummeted in the past year while volume has increased. With these increased volumes has come a seemingly endless supply of ad space across millions of niche sites that can leave a media planner stumped.
This significant uptick in both quantity and inventory, while prices decline, is leading to a hyper deflation of online ad valuations and an overall obscured view of the landscape. So when the Wall Street Journal posts that ad revenue dropped year-over-year it’s not exactly telling you the whole story. In fact, it’s only one part of a much more complicated story.
I would be curious to see the difference in prices today, as opposed to three years ago. I would suspect it costs more than 50% less than three years ago. This, along with rising inventories, is a perfect storm for destruction and ultimately redefining the entire market. But one can only hope…
