Archive: December, 2008

24 hours from now most North Americans will be tipping glasses in high hopes of a prosperous new year. Before arriving at any of the parties however, many of us are already feeling somewhat hungover. Remember when you were a little kid and you made yourself giddy, dizzy and nauseous by spinning around and around as fast as you could and then stopping suddenly? That’s how 2008 felt. For the past six years the western world has been on an economic merry-go-round upon which everyone was tempted by big brass-rings without noticing the strings attached turned into ropes which then became chains. Now we feel like we’re left grasping straw. That’s how the end of ‘08 feels.

So now we’re moving into 2009. The good news, nines are easier to write than eights are. We have that much going for us. Aside from that small blessing, 2009 is going to be anybody’s guess. I’ve never felt intimidated making a list of predictions in previous years. Sure I realized I would be wrong on many points but I always figured scoring above .500 was a fairly good batting average. In previous years, I’ve scored higher than 50% right but this year is different. This year, nobody knows what will happen past February when tens of millions of credit card statements come due.

Below, behold the biggest or most interesting stories I found in March 2008. March was an interesting month full of debate, controversy and the first inklings that something wicked was coming this way…

March 2008

GOOG

$457.02/share, Mar 3

$440/share, Mar 31

YHOO

$27.77/share, Mar 3

$28.93/share, Mar 31

MSFT

$26.99/share, Mar 3

$28.38/share, Mar 31

Mar 1
IAC: Ready To Bail On Ask?
More on the impending shakeup at IAC’s long-suffering Ask. An insider tells us that IAC is considering finally pulling the plug on Teoma, the engine that powers Ask’s search, and just using Google.

Whiteboard Friday: SMX West Interviews-Matt Cutts
… we have an interview with Google’s own Spaminator, Matt Cutts. Matt was kind enough to sit down with Rand and reveal a bit more about the man behind the madness that is the Google Spam Team.

Mar 3
comScore Paid Search Data & How The Sky Might Not Be Falling
Last week comScore came out with a report that showed a 7% sequential decline vs. December 2007 in paid search ad clicks.

Taking a step away from reviewing the major news stories of the year, I thought I would take a look at the predictions I made for 2008 at this time last year. I didn’t do too badly by my loose scorecard though I was way off on the prospects of banner advertising in 2008. Here’s a look at what I thought would happen and what actually did happen in 2008…

1/ As we are starting to realize about Global Warming, the pace of change is accelerating exponentially. In 2008 what we have known to be solid ground is going to get rather swampy, much like the permafrost around Hudson’s Bay.

This prediction was easy and correct. The search and digital marketing environment is feeling as solid as ice right now. Ice is extremely solid as long as conditions are right but rapidly melts when conditions change. Dozens of well known search marketers changed jobs or found their positions eliminated this year, mostly due to the economy. The state of conventions and conferences is in question as well as the economy takes its toll on extra expenses and travel budgets.

The last post was about January 2008, the last “normal” month in the paradigm we had become accustomed to. Remember how it used to be? Four major search engines gave us a hint of competitiveness in the marketplace. The smallest of those engines, Ask.com was considered the cutting edge of search technologies and Yahoo!’s paid search marketing platform Panama was still seen a an important part of Yahoo!’s overall plan. Then February 2008 happened. The search and Internet world changed profoundly as a simple but terribly threatening phone call led us to the series of margin calls we’re witnessing today.

February 2008

Goog

$515.90/share, Feb 1

$471.18/share, Feb 28

YHOO

$28.23/share, Feb 1 (was trading at $19.18 the day before Microsoft announced take-over bid)

$27.78/share, Feb 28

MSFT

$30.45/share, Feb 1

$27.20/share, Feb 28

Feb 1 – February 1, 2008 will be remembered as one of the most important days in search history. Fueled by caffeine and a very weak Yahoo! Q4-report, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer calls Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang with an offer Ballmer believed Yang could not refuse. The events that happened after this date are all somehow affected by that phone call.

Microsoft Makes $45 Billion Bid To Buy Yahoo
Microsoft is to bid $31 per share to Yahoo’s board of directors to purchase the company, a deal potentially worth $45 billion.