SES NYC Day 2

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:33:46 GMT

Attended a very lively session this morning called "Pundits on Search" including Robert Scoble, Matt Cutts from Google, Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo, David Vise author of "The Google Story" and Zia Daniell Wigder from JupiterMedia. Danny Sullivan moderated, and the entire 75 minutes was in Q&A format. Some highlights:

IE7 and Search market share? Danny - nothing new here, MSN is already integrated into IE6
David doing a Bill Gates impression
Focus on vertical Search - Scoble: "Technorati rules!"
The next big thing a Search marketer needs to think about?
- Scoble: local and Maps
- Matt: Buzz, the blogosphere
- Zia: social search
- Danny: vertical search
Scoble announced MSN's cool new local search street level photo project

After the session I chatted with Scoble and Chris Pirillo a bit, then got my signed copy of Naked Conversations. Maybe I should read it before I post anything else here :-)

To see what these guys were doing late last night check out Scoble or Matt's blogs. Something about drinks and SPOT watch nuisances. They looked pretty wide awake considering how late they were up last night.

Search Engine Strategies New York 2006 Day 1

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 15:14:02 GMT

In the Big Apple for SES. This is the biggest dedicated Search conference ever, and I plan to use my three days here to "drink from the hose" and help prepare for SES Toronto in May.

Just listened to the keynote from Barry Diller, media mogul and owner of Ask.com. Ask relaunched their site last night and they took the opportunity to demo some of their new features. Barry was being interviewed by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch and took the opportunity to dispense some pearls of wisdom. Here are a few of my favourites:

Danny: Google and Yahoo have catchy slogans ("Dont' Be Evil", "FUSE), what is yours?

Barry: "Be Evil"

...laughter...

Seriously though, Barry took a jab at Google's "Don't be Evil": "When you're in business, it's a bit pretentious"

Ask's marketing slogan is "Use tools, feel human"

The concerns with China and business practices has been "over-mediated". The question for a business is "Can I stomach operating in a country..."

On US govt. and privacy concerns - Ask wasn't asked for data "We were a little insulted not to be asked. But "we have an obligation to protect people's data" and "Privacy in this area is absolute".

Demo:

The head of Ask.com gave a demo of the new site.

- dictionary is there #1 search vertical

- very nice Local Search features, including:

- ability to drag pushpins and automatically update directions

- walking directions

- aerial instead of satellite images

Final comments:

"We're very long term in our approach"

"Do you feel we have enough voices in Search"

"No"

Stephe's Space: sesny2006

SES NYC Day 2

Search Engine Strategies New York 2006 Day 1