Winning in Business Realize your potential. By Boris Revsin.

The Yahoo + Microsoft Deal… and talk about lame.

In reference to the recent Microsoft + Yahoo Search deal.

I think what it comes down to is who got the WORST of this deal. Fine, so Microsoft just bought up the #2 search giant. So what? Yahoo isn’t #2 because they haven’t had enough time to win, because they have a better product but can’t take it to scale or because they own some special niche (other than old people - sweeet…). They are #2 because they have a sub-par product, weak management and a terrible marketing initiative.

So, yeah, cool. Microsoft now has more eyeballs. Eyeballs which should be looking at the cheapest, easiest to use product. That product is Google, not a combination of Microsoft & Yahoo. I respect that Microsoft mgmt is TRYING there best, but I really can’t agree that MSFT should be focusing on text search. That’s never been there bread and butter (Desktop Apps, right) and Google is a couple years away from sliding that rug out from under them. If MSFT really really focused on web-based enterprise software, I think they have the talent to win that battle.

In terms of search: people talk about taking things “viral”… MSFT has enough traction (obviously) to CREATE a MUCH better product and take it worldwide. I don’t think it needs to buy Yahoo to go viral with a BETTER product. In lame VC pitch terms, they’ve got all they need to “spark” a “hockey stick” curve.

So, who got the worst deal? Yahoo. That search engine business they had was the only chance they had to take a NEW engine/idea viral. They don’t have that anymore.

The Journalism Debate

I first wrote this as an email to a friend of mine. I think it sums up my thoughts on the future of Journalism fairly accurately, so I figured I would post it here and see if I could start some dialogue.

Right now newspapers are obviously in a state of flux. There aren’t enough advertising dollars to keep them afloat in print; and they don’t yet know how to monetize online to retain staff. I don’t think you can really blame the news giants. Business as usual was good business for them for a long time. There was a space of time where there was a way to distribute paper quickly, effectively (hah) and for a nice profit. Obviously, that meant we would see newspaper companies left and right. Everyone wanted [wants] the news, and if you could deliver it to your community you made money.

But people are no longer having the news brought to them; they are now GOING to the news sources. Other than long-term investigative reports (Deep Throat and such), people above all other things want one thing from news: they want to hear it first. If a blog publishes a rumor about MSFT buying YHOO, even if its NOT true, it creates a huge buzz. Whether it isn’t fair, ethical, etc is beyond the point. Who cares? If a blog like Perez Hilton gets 500 comments in 2 hours because a friend told a friend told a source told Perez that Britney Spears is banging Marky Mark, how can a magazine like US Weekly compete? By the time they publish the Spears story, Perez Hilton has broken 10 more pieces of news.

If Techcrunch posts the MSFT rumor and it’s true, it’s breaking news. Nobody can compete with that. If TC posts the rumor and it’s false, they hide behind the wall of “process journalism” and “we’re a blog we can do this”. Again, if the Globe publishes a misleading story, they get reamed for it.

The conclusion I can’t help but come to is this: the demand for AWESOME writers will skyrocket, while the demand for mediocre content generators is going to take a nosedive. The internet only needs a certain amount of writers per topic. How many articles about Sotomayor do I need to read? 1? 5? 10? Certainly not all 5,000 articles written in various newspapers around the country. If they are online, I have access to them all. But I don’t need it…

I also want to note that I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. In a way, I’m right in the trenches. CampusLIVE is an advertising agency AND a college homepage. We do (currently) all of our own ad sales, and I’m seeing first hand the effects of a dying print medium on our entire industry. But money isn’t falling out of the sky for websites, either. More and more large brands are learning the importance of TRACKING your advertising effectiveness. You can’t count the number of clicks on a print advertisement, but you sure as hell can install Google Analytics (a very sophisticated product) onto your website in about 3 minutes.

Now, if my ads don’t send you traffic, leads or sales - fire me.

“Social Media” for Dummies

Social Media is no longer the future of advertising - it IS advertising (in my humble opinion).

So, let me back up a little bit. Right now I am contracted with some clients as the “social media” consultant (a confusingly ubiquitous title I am not so fond of) . I run the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, YouTube and Flickr sites for the clients. This means my interns pipe stories,photos and videos to me and I will post them on the sites, hoping for interaction. Facebook is very helpful for judging interaction because they give you an insights page that tracks things like likes, wall posts and comments. Twitter is cool to me for a few reasons, but the BEST way for an entity to USE twitter is to use the search function. In one minute you can find out ANYTHING that is being said about you and your brand. And you can respond to the individual immediately and officially. Very cool.

Twitter:

* Easy to use. Literally: 140 characters. Tweets & ReTweets.
* Effecient ways to promote new products and services to your core fans.
* EXCELLENT for customer service [http://www.search.twitter.com].
* Very likely to continue EXPLODING for a long time. The earlier you JUMP ON and STAY ACTIVE the more credibility you will have down the road.

Facebook:

* Everyone is using it.
* Ability to send out products and services into thousands of fans’ feeds. A powerful way to do “product placement” advertising. Meaning that a user of Facebook that is subscribed to your fan page sees your updates just like he sees John Smith. That is a powerful way to sell something.
* Ability to monitor interaction [likes, comments, wall posts. Once you have enough data points (enough Fans) you can start focusing on trends. Males/Females? Ages? Everything is right there for you to do research on. This is SO VALUABLE for targetting and research.
* Paid ads on Facebook are for BRANDING only. They get very poor REAL click-thrus.

I highly recommend you read this post by Brian Solis. Brian is a leading PR guy, and is basically planning on turning the entire industry up-side down (and SAVING it in the process). Let me know what you think.

Boris