Seriously Sour Taste

This week was meant to be great. I had so much sleep on the weekend, I was really looking forward to this week.


I made a mistake. I had a meeting with Yellow yesterday. There was no way that this week was going to be good.


I cannot get over the way Yellow are trying to hold their own customers to ransom over their website.


I have a lovely client, with distributors nationwide, who have advertised in the Yellow books for years. Now that yellow have finally started to sort their website out so that it actually works (sort of) they are finding ways to milk their customers for every penny they can. Including my clients.


Now, before I really get into this, let's have a little chat about what Yellow is. Yellow is a directory. It is a whole lot of business listings. That is all. Yellow have something of a monopoly on this game. 


So what's got my back up?

Unlike Google which obviously separates organic from paid results, Yellow have set up their system where the user is ONLY delivered paid search results, well, at least for the first few pages. But it doesn't differentiate in a way that is obvious to the consumer. When asked what user feedback there had been about this priority ranking, there was no real answer, just, "I'm sure we have that kind of information somewhere". 


Gold, Silver and Bronze listings is where Yellow is at. If you have a free listing, you can end up on the 3rd or 4th page of results depending on the category. Then, there are category sponsorship opportunities. 3 listings which sit above the gold listing. So, advertisers have to pay to have a gold listing and THEN have to fork out more to sponsor the category or they'll be pushed down the results even further.


Next I'm told, that because my client has a 'free' listing (because they spend bucket loads on the books and not online) this means that their DIRECT competitors have the ability to advertise on THEIR listing unless they upgrade their listing.


Are you kidding me? Talk about holding their own customers to ransom.


When I had a gripe on Twitter about this, I had a number of responses also voicing their displeasure with Yellow. 

• Trying to teach agency people what 'SEO' means 
• Giving less than 2 days notice to turn material around 
• Incorrect listings under wrong titles 
• Updating free listings over the phone and 'up-selling' to include a URL but neglecting to mention that website inclusion comes with a $120 pricetag (in this instance) 
• Their "insanely over-priced ratecard

Now, I'm yet to see their ratecard, but I am incredibly unimpressed anyway. I know I don't give Yellow a lot of love on here, but in real life my clients do. When I told the rep I wasn't feeling the love, I was told that I could use my clients Yellow 'rewards' - interestingly these hadn't come up earlier - to reduce the cost of the print so that I could shift that budget to online (I can't use my rewards online, only in print). My rep was also very quick to point out that online commission is 20% while the books only 10.5% so it would be better for me. 


Are you for reals?


I'm so over this, that I can't even be bothered writing about this anymore. If I could, I would talk about why they are revenue gathering to get out of their $1.05B debt, that perhaps they should just pull back on their awful advertising campaigns instead and that their business is becoming more and more redundant so it doesn't surprise me that they're scrambling for money, but I don't have the energy.


Use your head people. Yellow give search results which are based purely on $. They are not delivering the best result for you or your potential customers. Don't give Yellow money for online, spend it on adwords and improving the SEO on your websites. This makes more sense. When was the last time you heard someone say "why don't you Yellow it?"


EDIT: The wonderful Anthony Gardiner has created a poll about Yellow Directories on Facebook if you feel the need to vote.

Social Searching

This is lovely.

I went to a presentation at MSN the other day and learnt about all the cool social search things they are rolling out in the States at the moment. One of these things is in conjunction with Facebook and even here in NZ we will soon have Facebook referrals from our friends when we search for things on Bing.

When I heard this, my concern was the amount of education required for the general public to understand that they could benefit from social searching and (basically) friend referrals IF they are logged into Facebook. Trying to explain to your average Joe Blow why their friends profiles turn up on Facebook plug-ins as per below:

For some reason they think it's magic that their faces are staring back at them. Seriously. I have had more than one conversation about this.

Either way, I think it is great and smart and a fantastic thing for Bing to implement. Being the underdog to Google, Bing has to do something to differentiate themselves and this seems like a clever way to do it.

Having so recently seen the Bing example, imagine my surprise when I was on a friends computer the other night, searching for The Chosen One and this pops up:

Social searching on Google! Due to the Microsoft/Facebook exclusive relationship (they're totally going steady), Bing has the advantage because Facebook is a BEAST, but at least Google is trying to make some headway in this area. Obviously Twitter isn't quite as big in New Zealand, but luckily for me, I embrace the Tweets, so I am hoping that this will bode well in my searching going forward.

Really interested in what other people might think about this? If you were searching for 'new cars' and the search returns a result which details that one of your friends like a certain brand, would you be more inclined to investigate further? I think it will be really handy for restaurant recommendations, but further than that, I'm not so sure.

Behind the Vines

This is freaking AWESOME.

Rhythm & Vines are doing an incredibly awesome and interesting promotion to give away tickets for R&V2010 this year. I gotta say, its one of the most impressive marketing campaigns that I have seen in a little while and massive props to whomever is behind it. Totes impressed.

So, what the hell am I going on about.

You can read about it in full here, but basically following the success of the brilliant Parisian Love ad for Google:

Google and You Tube have created Google Search Stories where you can input what you want searched, overlay music and upload your own search story to You Tube.

Fun fun fun.

So R&V have put it to their public to create their own search story to win 2 x 3 day passes for Rhythm & Vines 2010. No bands have been announced yet, but you can guarantee that its gonna be a good one.

At any rate, here is my one:

There was something very satisfying about watching this screen load:

Anyway - what are you waiting for? Go. Make your own. SO MUCH FUN. (Yes, I know I am a geek - what about it?)

LOVE Chrome

OK, now despite the fact that it does everything that it claims in this little gem of a video - how amazing is this?

It's a little slow on the uptake, but give it a chance, it is just beautiful and if you're a Chrome user, you're totally going to get it.

Swoon.

Using the internet for good?

Using the Internet for good rather than evil? Using it for something other than inflicting my opinion to anyone who will read it? Or downloading porn? Is that even possible?

Why yes, yes it is!

There is a great site called donoogle.com which is powered by Google (all hail!) but every time you
search, they donate to charity. So you can search as per usual, but whenever you do, Donoogle donates to the NZ factions of either WWF, Oxfam or Unicef. While the money goes to the NZ arms, they are encouraged to direct the money to international causes so that people worldwide can use the site and know that they are doing good for the world. I know that the guys behind this are really keen to put out a press release announcing how much has been donated thus far, but they cannot get hold of one charity, and so don't want to announce until they have handed over the cheque.

I think it kicks arse (although it doesn't surprise me) that this site has been born through kiwi ingenuity and good intentions. So, tell your friends, make it your homepage, and do good while you search.

Wait, I don't download porn.

I get it, I'm a geek

But I don't mind that I'm a geek. I can freely admit it. I am happy with the fact that when, on Monday morning when I logged in to check analytics, I was surprised and delighted to find that analytics took on a whole new life of its own. YAY!

Google continues to be my favourite thing in the whole wide world. Of all things in this world that you can rely on being right and true and perfect in everyway I thought possible, it continues to amaze me in the different ways that Google can make my life better. I love the new layout of the accounts overview. Just beautiful. Confirmation that my sites are on the up and up, bliss. Seeing that one of my sites is 561% up on traffic year on year. I don't think a geek could ask for more.

Thanks Google. You were the shining light of my week.