Google (GOOG) is accustomed to being in the top spot. It leads search and virtually owns the online ad space. Its Google News portal is among the top sites for directing traffic to media outlets. But, the behemoth is starting to feel the feet from social media sensation Facebook.

Not only is the rather young platform stealing market share from Google News, it's now encroaching on its e-mail turf ... a situation that Google isn't taking lightly. To compete more effectively with Facebook, Google is upgrading its Gmail capabilities to include more social media tools reminiscent of those found on its competitor.

Continue reading Google Wants Gmail to Take Social Media Market Share

Google Wants Gmail to Take Social Media Market Share originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Facebook COO friends Disney board

Facebook COO friends Disney board originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

From some of the companies I've talked to, the results from advertising on LinkedIn have been fairly strong. Then again, the website is the largest and fastest growing professional network, making it much easier for targeting.

Well, LinkedIn is improving things even more. That is, the company has launched LinkedIn DirectAds. As the name implies, this is a self-service system.

Of course, this may not be the best option for major advertisers that need sophisticated campaigns. But, for small companies, this solution can be ideal (hey, just look at the success of Google AdWords).

And the targeting for DirectAds is highly granular. For example, you can select a myriad of industry categories, such as CPAs, graphic designers, and so on. Or, perhaps you want to focus on sales executives or CEOs? Keep in mind that LinkedIn has 20 million registered users (with extensive profile information on each).

Getting started is easy. The process takes a few minutes and the minimum fee is $25.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

LinkedIn launches self-service, targeted advertising originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The internet is wonderful for marketers. Traffic can be measured really finely and the whole marketing-sales loop actually can be measured. Unlike TV or radio, internet firms know exactly what they spend on bringing traffic to their websites and how much these firms make off of each visitor. Metrics is super-important and is a differentiator.

Of course, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has its long tentacles everywhere. Google has been providing many websites with free analytics software integrated with its paid-links AdWords, so website operators can measure the effectiveness of search engine marketing efforts, as well as measuring traffic into and out of their websites. Omnitron (NASDAQ: OMTR) is a big player in this space following its purchase of competitor Visual Sciences.

So, it's interesting to read this morning that Google is now making its Urchin software available for public beta use. Google's Urchin is similar to Analytics except that the software is installed on clients' servers, instead of just plugging in some code on a website. Urchin seems to be a beefed-up version of Analytics, and now organizations with a lot of content behind a firewall can use Google software to analyze their web metrics. As more and more companies rely upon Google's marketing arm to drive internet traffic, Google's monetization arm to help monetize traffic on websites, Google's shopping cart, and Checkout, metrics is the grease that makes all these things work in harmony.

This means more money for Google's clients, and ultimately more money for the internet's Big Daddy, Google.

Zack Miller is the Managing Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. Author owns a long-term position in Google stock and uses Google products to manage his firm's website.

Metrics industry heating up with Google's Urchin public debut originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 03 Feb 2008 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) recently trading up $15.29 to $609.20.

GOOG is expected to report earnings per share (EPS) on October 18th. GOOG October at the money 580 straddle is priced at $32.10. GOOG October option implied volatility of 38 is above its 26-week average of 27 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

The Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) CEO Glenn Murphy hosted a meeting with analysts on October 5th.

Smith Barney says "Mr. Murphy is focused on making the company gets an adequate return on its investments. This includes a focus on the expense of the business. We suspect there will be continued focus on moderating the cost structure and assessing various cost components, including marketing. We think the real estate portfolio is under review." GPS over all option implied volatility of 31 is near its 26-week average according to Track Data, suggesting flat price risk.

Daily options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

Option update: GOOG straddle suggests risk into earnings per share as GOOG at record originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is betting that search on wireless handsets will become a big business. The company understands that online search on the PC platform cannot grow at its current rate forever, so, at some point, revenue from its AdWords program will begin to flatten.

To combat the potential of a less robust growth environment on the web, Google is moving Adwords onto its Google Mobile Search product. The program will be free until November and ads will only run on websites designed for handset screens.

Silicon Alley Insider points to a recent survey by research firm Kelsey Group as the reason Google is so anxious to get a foothold in the new market. "Revenue from U.S. mobile search advertising will soar from $33.2 million this year to $1.4 billion in 2012."

Google has some potholes in its path. After being handily beaten in the PC-based search market, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) MSN Live Search are working to get their products on as many handsets as possible. However, they still have the disadvantage that their search products do not produce results as good as Google's and their text ad targeting products are inferior.

In moving to the mobile platform world, Google maintains its critical edge.

Google (GOOG) to move AdWords to wireless search originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

eBay throws fit, then crawls back to Google originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reported that online auctioneer eBay Inc (NASDAQ: EBAY) has resumed advertising with Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG), after having pulled its ads to prove that it didn't need to spend as heavily on Google's AdWords.
• The Financial Times reported that some inside and outside of Lazard Ltd (NYSE: LAZ) are questioning if CEO Bruce Wassertein has given the company a sustainable model that will be able to thrive without the current "dealmaking binge."
• According to the Financial Times, citing people familiar with the situation, News Corporation's (NYSE: NWS) Rupert Murdoch is looking beyond its $5B offer for Dow Jones and Company Inc (NYSE: DJ) in search of Internet acquisitions or a deal involving MySpace.

• Also concerning News Corp and Dow Jones, the U.K. Times reported that the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones, asked late Friday for two seats on News Corp's board, which is one more than Rupert Murdoch has been willing to offer.
• General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) is seeking to build a diesel locomotive plant in India, in partnership with Indian railway companies, reported Business Standard.
• Yediot Ahronot reported that Nice Systems Limited (NASDAQ: NICE) is in talks to acquire Actimize for $280M.

Newspaper wrap-up 6-25-07: eBay takes Google's AdWords back originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) has pulled all of its AdWord marketing dollars from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). The online auction site is one of the largest buyers of ads from Google.

It would appear that eBay's action is revenge because Google planned to have an event for eBay PayPal users at their big annual meeting in Boston. The search engine party was to be called "Freedom Party", and was aimed at getting PayPal customers to consider the competing Google CheckOut system. The party has since been canceled.

NetRatings says that eBay was the largest single buyer of AdWords in the first quarter, using them to drive traffic to sections of its auction business.

The problem highlights issues that Google will have as its extends itself into new businesses. It is not hard to imagine that sections like Google Finance and Google photos could compete with smaller companies and that over time, these firms might opt not to use the large search engine for their market.

The price of success.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Ebay feud with Google escalates originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

When Google (NASD:GOOG) and Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) announced that they would launch a joint project, many on Wall St. through that the big search company would start to bundle its e-mail and calender products with the sales management software from Salesforce. The assumption was mistaken.

A combination of software from the two companies might have given Microsoft's (NASD:MSFT) sales management products a run for their money, but, it didn't turn out that way.

Instead, Google and Salesforce.com announced a kiss-your-sister deal whereby the customer relations company will allow its users to buy Google AdWords text ads though the Saleforce.com website. Salesforce will get a cut.

The deal is odd because it is so insignificant. It also assumes that Salesforce.com customers are too stupid to buy AdWords text links themselves. But, the CRM firm must have decided not to give its users the benefit of that doubt.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Google and Salesforce.com get together -- sort of originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 05 Jun 2007 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and watch out for more Battle of the Brands posts.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) was the shining star of the internet bubble in 2000, just before the dot-com crash, and has managed to keep a huge customer base (tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions based on how you calculate it). Yahoo! customers are loyal apparently, even though Google has trounced Yahoo! in recent years in terms of search popularity and overall brand awareness. Like Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Yahoo! was founded by Stanford grad students, Jerry Yang and David Filo, so that information on the web could be more easily found back when the web was in its infancy -- 1995.

From 1995 to 2001, Yahoo! grew at a rapid clip, and then saw a downward spiral as advertising fortunes started collapsing at the same time Google's "text ad" advertising model started growing by leaps and bounds. It's pretty obvious by now that Yahoo!'s "one ad for all" approach grew quite stale (and so did its revenues) at the same time Google's "customer relevant" and unobtrusive ad model grew an an inversely proportionate rate. Yahoo! has made great strides on the comeback trail under five-year CEO and Hollywood expert Terry Semel, who has modeled Yahoo! as a "relationship builder" to customers (and gotten them to pay for certain services).

This model is quite opposed to Google's "tool-based" customer model that can't touch Yahoo!'s model for creating and enhancing actual relationships with paying customers, beyond just providing easy internet tools for customers while keeping that "relationship" quite distant. Yahoo! shares spit almost three years ago, but have remained between $29 and $44 per share since that time. By contrast, Google's shares have skyrocketed from $85 in August 2004 to over $460 today. In terms of an investment over the past five years, it's hard to draw a conclusion since Google has been publicly traded for less than three years, while Yahoo! has been traded for quite a bit longer than that.

Continue reading Yahoo! vs. Google: Battle of the Brands

Yahoo! vs. Google: Battle of the Brands originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) has just taken another step on the road to ramping its ad revenue model (AdWords) with the opening of a new office in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The office launches with 20 people but is expected to employ 1,000 people within five years.

A purported $38 million in tax breaks over 20 years could be part of the incentive for Google to open the office in Michigan, but it makes sense to have the office located in Ann Arbor because it is in the same time zone as New York City (GMT -5:00), which has a proportionally high number of corporate headquarters. West Coast sales could likely be handled by a department within Google's Mountain View headquarters.

The other takeaway is that Google is planning on having 1,000 people within five years. Seeing as it has roughly 6,000 employees currently and the current staff dedicated to AdWords sales in Michigan is just 20 (of course the current sales team is probably part of the 6,000 and the 20 is in Michigan is focused on hiring), Google is clearly feeling very optimistic about future ad revenue and its own success.

Of course, Yahoo! and Microsoft are both just as optimistic about the ad revenue model pioneered by Google; having launched their own services earlier this year. And AOL has begun the transition from ISP service to content provider and portal focused around, what else, ad revenue.

Google's new AdWords office shows high hopes for ad revenue growth originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 18 Sep 2006 10:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

With the intense anticipation of Google's new payment system, GBuy - which some say is an eBay killer - the company has taken the opportunity to launch something else: Google Checkout. If it did this a month earlier or later, there likely would not have been as much buzz. But, then again, Google certainly understands how to leverage the Net for maximum PR.

Actually, Google Checkout is a no-brainer.  Basically, it is a bolt-on service for the company's wildly successful AdWords system. 

With AdWords, any company can advertise online -- in a completely automated way.  So, why not allow those prospective customers - who click ads - also use Google technology to process the purchase?

For consumers, it's a huge benefit.  For example, after I make a purchase using Google Checkout, it's much easier for me to make subsequent transaction (just a click - since my credit card is already in the Google database).  And, if thousands and thousands of other Google merchants use the system, it makes my life easier when I buy from them.

Of course, making it easy for consumers to buy is critically important for merchants.  Other benefits for merchants:  it is a matter of cut-and-paste for a merchant to add Google Checkout functionality. And the fee structure is competitive: 20 cents plus 2% of the purchase price of the item.  In fact, if a merchant uses AdWords, he or she gets a $10 transaction credit for each $1 expenditure on AdWords.

Google is doing what Google does best; that is, creating scalable systems that take friction out of a process.  And, with Google Checkout, it's a big-leap in the power of AdWords, which is the growth driver for the company.

Check It Out: Google's One-Stop E-Commerce Shop originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 29 Jun 2006 07:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.