Internet Marker

July 31, 2009

Advertising Dollars

Filed under: Uncategorized — imarker @ 5:51 pm

It’s a funny business, advertising. The ability to track clicks and impression online has helped to remove some of the unknown, but it’s still a business that is vague. Coke has to advertise to keep up with Pepsi. Nike has to advertise to fend off Adidas. Companies have to maintain their market share and build up their brand. How much of the money they spend goes to waste though? Is that big billboard off the freeway worth it? Did that commercial really help our brand?

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.

-John Wanamaker
US department store merchant (1838 – 1922)

June 24, 2009

Are Google Ad Words An Economic Indicator?

Filed under: Uncategorized — imarker @ 4:56 pm

Interesting story from CNBC:

Google’s AdWord rates, set by an auction system, reveal what search topics are most popular to advertisers, and thus to consumers. BNY ConvergEx Group released a fascinating report that broke down what the prices say about the state of the economy. Bottom line: it’s not good. The highest prices go for ads for “budget offerings and services that cater to a recessionary environment.” Maybe this is a trailing indicator, but still, there no green shoots in this study.

The most expensive ad words, going for nearly $65 a click, are for businesses that cash out long-term structured settlements in a lump sum. (Translation: people are desperate for cash, fast.)

Read the story here.

May 8, 2009

Break the Rules

Filed under: Uncategorized — imarker @ 9:46 pm

This Gladwell piece in the New Yorker got me thinking about how teams in soccer try to kill the game off when they have a lead or change their style of play when they’re losing. Same goes for teams in the NFL when they’re winning. Teams use the prevent defense and drop back. They often lose. They concede too many short passes and the team kicks a field goal.

In soccer they bring on a defensive player or start to send the long balls into the corners and hold it. This is all well and fine, if it’s done properly. But many times it’s not. It’s just done poorly. Teams end up hoofing the ball into the corners and losing the ball, not winning throw ins, and then fouling unnecessarily. No possession. No building of confidence. The game becomes frantic.

In the recent Champions League game semifinal, Chelsea took off Didier Drogba and brought on Juliano Belletti in the 72 minute. Barcelona had ten men at this point. Why not keep the pressure on. Why not, instead of going defensive, continue to attack and attack and attack.

Barcelona on the other hand did the right thing. They stuck to their passing game and didn’t become desperate. They didn’t resort to sending long balls as most teams would at the end of the game. They kept to their tight short passing game. This resulted in a calm and smooth pass by Messi across the top of the box to a waiting Iniesta to knock home. Game over.

It’s almost like the Seinfeld episode where George does the opposite of everything he normally does and things turn out a lot better. Sometimes you have to go against the grain or the conventional wisdom. Maybe don’t always do what’s expected.

April 10, 2009

To Link or Not

Filed under: Uncategorized — imarker @ 11:27 pm

In this Maureen Dowd piece she actually hyperlinks to Cars.com, not sure why exactly. Sometimes a newspaper will and sometimes they won’t link out to companies. But a link from the NY Times is very valuable. It doesn’t mean that much to Cars.com, they’re already a big company, but a small site or blog, that link is worth a great deal – that site’s Google page rank will shoot up.

Gary Speed, 58, who works for McClatchy’s Cars.com unit, drove half an hour from Groveland, Calif., with his wife, Margaret, to celebrate her birthday. He’s considering gold panning “as another source of income because I’m going to retire soon.” He was intent on not losing the gold flakes in his sluice. “That can buy a can of cat food,” he noted.

April 8, 2009

Australian canine castaway found

Filed under: Uncategorized — imarker @ 12:57 am

From the BBC:

A pet dog which was washed overboard and believed drowned has been found four months later – as a castaway on a remote Australian island.

Sophie Tucker – named after the famous US entertainer – vanished as Jan and Dave Griffith sailed through stormy waters off Queensland last November.

But unknown to her grieving owners, the plucky dog survived a long swim across shark-infested waters to an island.

There she lived on a diet of baby goats until being found by visiting rangers.

The Griffiths were amazed to hear of the discovery and have now been reunited with their pet.

April 6, 2009

Federico Macheda ‘Kiko’

Filed under: Uncategorized — imarker @ 1:21 am

A goal for history.

March 9, 2009

Jon Stewart Hammers CNBC

Filed under: Uncategorized — imarker @ 5:19 am

Genius.

Read more…

February 23, 2009

Long Live Conan

Filed under: Uncategorized — imarker @ 6:19 am

Conan O’Brien et Rebecca Romijn-Stamos

February 9, 2009

Red Glasses

Filed under: Uncategorized — imarker @ 5:43 am

I agree with what most of Deepak Chopra has to say. He never says anything negative, so it’s hard not to agree with what he’s talking about. He’s just trying to help people. But when he says things wearing those red glasses with the bling bling on the sides, I have a hard time taking anything he says seriously.

It’s like he put them on for a Saturday Night Live skit. It’s like if the Dalai Lama all of a sudden started wearing a Nike T-shirt with a gold chain, or Mikhail Gorbachev promoting bags by Luis Vuitton, actually that’s happened, so I scratch that. You get the idea though, there’s the good old disconnect going on, one of these things doesn’t seem to fit.

Really though, for Chopra, who espouses a Buddhist philosophy, it’s hilariously and a bit odd for him to wear something that makes a statement of perhaps vanity or ego, it’s hard to take, or more, it’s hard not to laugh at.

The same goes for Tom Daschle, who has taken to wearing some fire hydrant red glasses these days, all the while he promotes a pragmatic, logical and understated set of health care programs or economic reform“ in his support for Obama. As Maureen Dowd wrote in one of her recent articles: “It should have been a harbinger of doom when Daschle began sporting those determined-to-be-hip round red glasses.”

Is this an age thing? Do both of these men fall into a mid life type of crisis? Where these red glasses act as their means of making a change. Who knows, but it’s hard not to laugh at their pics.

January 20, 2009

Martin Luther King

Filed under: Uncategorized — imarker @ 12:54 am

This was his last speech before he was assassinated.

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