Archive: April, 2008

Fire destroyed several businesses sharing an office complex with Metamend Search Marketing early Sunday morning, April 27, 2008. The search engine marketing firm’s main offices were spared most of the fire damage however the building itself was rendered unsafe for occupation. No one was hurt during the incident.

Though Metamend’s offices are currently inaccessible, the company continues operating as normal. Working from home-offices, staff members are responding to telephone or email inquiries, and client engagements are continuing as usual while the administration is securing new office space.

Critical company assets, such as client and corporate data, are housed and stored off-site where it is both secure and accessible to Metamend staff. Metamend’s search engine marketing services will continue without interruption or hindrance. Metamend expects that customers are unlikely to notice any changes in service delivery over the upcoming week.

“Fortunately, because of the nature of our business, our staff and administration is able to work remotely until new office space opens later this week,” said Metamend President, Glenn Convey. Convey continues, “Metamend will execute a disaster management plan for its facilities. With current technology and investment made over the past year, our administration has been able to re-establish operations quickly and efficiently. Fortunately, no one was hurt from the fire and the damage is confined to facilities only.”

It’s noon-ish on Monday and nothing of note has happened on the Microsoft – Yahoo! front this weekend. Observers expected to witness the fireworks of brinkmanship and brimstone as the three-week ultimatum issued by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer expired at midnight-ish Sunday.

Though nothing happened over the weekend, most expect Microsoft to make an announcement early this week. What that announcement will bring is another question. Yahoo!’s Board has mounted a stiff and surprisingly strong resistance to the acquisition attempt, seemingly in a bid to drive Microsoft’s offer higher. Microsoft however, has warned Yahoo! it does not intend to increase its offer.

Some financial analysts are now predicting that Microsoft could just pack up and walk away, leaving Yahoo! spinning and reeling after four months of frantic dodging.

Perhaps this period of Sitzkrieg has been part of Microsoft’s overall strategy all along. Even if it doesn’t acquire Yahoo!, Microsoft has succeeded in weakening Yahoo!’s position and in forcing Yahoo! to alter its business plans well into the future. In short, Microsoft has totally knocked Yahoo! off its game. Even it it walks away, Microsoft has won position against its #2 rival.

An interesting report from the Kelsey Group predicts the interactive classified advertising market will grow from its current $3.9Billion spend to over $14.7Billion by 2010. Advancing at a phenomenal 30.5% compounded annual growth rate, the increase in ad-spend will come primarily from traditional media such as newspapers, radio and television. A radical increase in online advertising dollars is not extraordinary news to the search marketing community. We’ve sensed and benefited from this shift in the sensibilities of advertisers for several years now.

What might be a surprise to many search marketers are the exact directions that increased ad-spending is likely to go in. According to the report, much of that money will be focused on highly vertical markets such as home services, home and garden care, health care, legal, finance and auto repair. Because items or inventory from each of these vertical sectors tend to have specific search tools or sections of larger search engines dedicated to them, search results from those categories might soon be found faster amd more easily “off-Google” than at-Google.

To quote search journalist Michelle Greer, “Apparently, some online advertisers are realizing that having ads on the 60th page of a Google keyword search isn’t exactly fruitful.” This is a scenario in which Google becomes its own worst enemy, leading searchers and advertisers to focus their attentions elsewhere.