Leadpile’s Blog

In years past YouTube tried to roll out in-stream ads (in 1997), however the acceptance of it did not go to well with viewers. Time has past and there are other sites that have incorporates such ads, so YouTube is now looking at taking another stab at it. It makes sense because YouTube is utilized by so many people in so many ways, that incorporating some sort of ads had to become part the of “YouTube Revolution”. The good thing about what YouTube is doing, is that they are creating these ads that are actually able to be skipped. However, what they are finding is that if you have a short 15 second ad, more people are not “skipping” over the ad. This is great news for the advertiser trying to get their ads played. Maybe the future of high priced Super Bowl ads will continue on from our televisions to our computers?
Leadpile has incorporated YouTube into our marketing efforts to help get our name out there, and we can certainly see a potential with bringing in ads to these videos. YouTube has to learn to make money, so what other options do they have but to look at cashing in on all the eyes they have on their videos? I think it is a good marketing idea…..

An old favorite turns 40! Sesame Street had it’s 40 anniversary this week and was celebrated all over including Google’s homepage which changed images daily from one Sesame Street resident to another. Sesame Street has been teaching and entertaining children for 4 decades now, and is probably to thank for a large percentage of the US population under 40 learning how to count to 10.
Sesame Street not only teaches the ABC’s and 123’s, but also teaches acceptance and sets examples for children to follow. According to Newsweek, Sesame Street is now in 16 countries across the world including South Africa were the show features an HIV positive Muppet and in the Palestinian where coexistence and cooperation were displayed. Topics such as death and 9/11 have also been acknowledged by Sesame Street and children with illnesses and conditions are often regularly included on the show as well.
Newsweek states that not only is “Sesame Street no ordinary nonprofit. It is, arguably, the most important children’s program in the history of television. No show has effected the way we think about education, parenting, childhood development and cultural diversity, both in the United States and abroad, more than Big Bird and friends. You might even say that Sesame Street changed the world, one letter at a time”.
It seems too simple that a children’s program created 40 years ago could still be one of the best, but it is and nothing I have seen comes close to comparing. Leadpile wishes Sesame Street a Happy Anniversary!!!!!

Believe it or not, Apple iTunes might have some competition coming from some new/old players in town!
In recent news, rumors are rumbling about Google possibly getting into the music service business. Potentially, with search results there could be an opportunity to purchase music from your favorite artist. This is big for Google and possibly something Apple will need to worry about.
If it wasn’t enough having recent news about Google and music services, Facebook is now in the news for it’s interest in music sales too! This is no rumor because Facebook has already started selling music in it’s online gift store. This is great news with the idea of how innovative online companies are trying to be, however possibly a little nerve racking for the online music mogul- Apple iTunes. May the music race BEGIN!!!!

This week Google launched a test for the ‘Wave”, a new interface for communication that allows group discussions, email, instant messaging, picture and video editing and posting, blogging… there really is not much that this new communication tool does not do! A selected 100,000 people were invited by Google to use this new tool during it’s testing phase, and then to supply feedback and suggestions.
The Wave is set up in a real time format allowing conversations to transition from email to live conversation such as instant messaging. According to wave.google.com, the definition of a Wave is as follows:

• A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
• A Wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.
• A Wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a Wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

If the Wave is able to combine all of the forms of conversation that are currently available, how will this change an industry such as Lead Generation? Will this replace the need for topic specific forums, and blogs? If a demand for lead types is posted, and instantly a supplier is able to respond and make a connection and discuss in an open format for others to see, it could be a huge thing for brand recognition! Being able to edit content and rewind to see where posts are coming from, could be an asset when the need for “damage control” arises.
I have signed up to be on the list of hopefuls in the next rounds of invitations sent out, I can’t wait to get on this wave!

Microsoft is gearing up to test a new format for ads appearing in the search ad format. Traditionally, this ad type appears as plain text with links either imbedded into the text or in adjacent to. According to MediaPostNEWS, the new ad type that will be live next month will introduce logos and favicons hoping to attract consumers attention as well as generate more search campaign dollars to Bing.
Bing which has continued to increase its market share of the search engine world, and currently sits at 10.7%, still has a long way to go to catch Google who is number 1 with 64.6% of the market share.
When searching, does the ad type on the page attract you to return to a specific search engine? Does ad type affect your choice, more than habit? I know that I have been making an attempt to utilize Bing, but 9 times out of 10 I am at the search results produced by Google before I even realize I made the decision. Flashier ads may attract additional buyers to the ad, but the consumers will have to be attracted to the search engine first!

Two of the most popular search engines have both released a new and innovative way to look at your search results . Bing.com and Google.com just introduced “visual search”. Visual search is going to allow the users to select search images rather then typing in key words.
The visual search lets users sort through popular search categories by using pictures. Yet Google’s new Fast Flip will show thumbnails of pages when searching for news stories, instead of the short descriptions and headlines the company usually provides.
With this new and unique way of searching topics and articles it is sure to bring more web traffic to both of these sites. People are always looking to check out new ideas, and this is definitely a fun new way to utilize both Bing and Google!

Keeping up with the fast pace of the Internet advertising world is a challenge for anyone let alone a huge conglomerate such as Google. Google, which is constantly under a close eye by many in the online-marketplace for changing trends and new directions to follow is once again advancing in ways to attract consumers.
According to MediaPostNEWS Google has been advancing the advertising opportunities offered in many ways such as upgrades to its search engine, mobile, Adwords and AdSense platforms. Google has recently also re-vamped the placement of text ads making the over all look of the search page cleaner with less gaps improving the search experience.
Good news for Google investors is the hope that improvement in analytics and the Web site optimizer will prove to increase consumer spend by tracking traffic patterns and pin-pointing sites that attract high volumes of visitors. I mean really does this mean anything to the internet world, or is this something that they SHOULD be doing to stay in competition with the other search engines? Hopefully this sets the precedence that you have to continue to improve what you have and not take advantage of the fact that you are #1. Really Google could just sit in the first place of search engine use, and not look internally to improve, but instead they are being proactive to always look at ways to enhance what they have.

Google announced today that they have been working on a faster search engine.  Never a company to stand pat, this latest effort is hoping to improve results for developers and power searchers.  You can try the new search engine here. The project is called “Caffeine” and is hoping to improve speed, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.  It may also be an effort to search parts of the Web that have not normally been accessed.  As with many things Google, stay tuned…

It now seems that Google will have a bigger beast to battle, because Yahoo and Microsoft have officially signed a partnership deal. This is something that has been going on for a while now, but now has become official. This new deal will also create some more potential for Microsoft’s new search engine – Bing, amongst other benefits. The AP is reporting that, “Under the agreement, Yahoo will have limited access to the data on users’ searches — which yield insights that can be used to pick out ads more likely to pique a person’s interest. The value of that information is why Microsoft wants to process more search requests.”
It does not seem that this signed deal will produce any immediate changes that we will all see, however Leadpile and all other lead generation companies that deal with search engines, will see some sort of changes in the near future. There is going to be lots to come with the battle over the market share for Google and Microsoft/Yahoo, and who can come up with what next? Hopefully, we are all going to be the ones that benefit from this battle to be on top! Let’s sit back and watch it ALL unfold.

Google has rolled out some recent videos to help improve your landing pages and conversions. The video discusses aspects that would be helpful for converting visitors, versus driving them away. The 7 deadly sins of landing page design is a little lengthy, but certainly a video that you can take something away from. Leadpile publishers might want to take a look!

Lately it seems to be a dog-eat-dog world with all our search engines trying to get the biggest piece of the search engine “puzzle”. Yesterday I spoke about search engines and the need to bring new things to the table in order to stay competitive with other search engines. Ask.com is one of those search engines that is offering a unique service that other search engines are not offering. For instance, Ask.com is great for longer questions you want answered versus entering them in a standard Google search, and having to filter through all the results. Comscore reports that Ask.com’s ranking rose from 10th place to now 6th place, compared to other properties such as eBay and Facebook (in May based on unique users). This explains why a lot of Leadpile publishers are using this search engine to generate traffic to their payday loan, debt, auto finance, online education and other websites. Just like search engines trying to do something different to attract users, affiliate marketing and lead generators have to think of unique ways to generate traffic to their properties. Ask.com seems to be a good option to consider. It appears that others think so too, and that’s why their rankings seem to be headed in the right direction. Another GREAT alternative to the Google BEAST!

In the days of companies trying to be the best of the best, companies are trying to always come up with fresh new ideas. Yahoo has rolled out it’s new search tool called “search pad”. This new Yahoo tool will allow those that are trying to do a lot of research on a prticular subject matter, to keep all their results in one common place to reference (a notepad per say). This new tool will allow you to really sort through all the various search results you obtained from a particular subject matter. This is not something that can be organized with search engines such as Google and Bing, so there could be some interest in this new notepad. The unfortunate thing about this new tool is it really is not beneficial for those that are just doing a quick search for simple subjects such as stores in the area.
The idea of this could be really good for students or workers that are doing an indepth report, and need to have a lot of material to complete the report. Unfortunately, the use of libraries has pretty much dwindled, where people now use the internet to research reports for school and work.
Leadpile and other internet companies have to have this same sort of initiative to stay around. The future of your company relies on knowing your competition will always be trying to come up with new/fresh ideas. If you want to stay around and remain competitive you have to come up with ideas to capture a new audience that some other company is not doing. This appears to be that attempt by Yahoo, and it certainly has a uniqueness that other search engines are not yet offering. So maybe it will be received with open arms like Microsoft’s Bing search engine. The key is to not capture of the attention of users, but to keep their attention.