Changes Blur the Scenery Along the Digital Divide

The line it is drawn the curse it is cast The slow one now will later be fast As the present now will later be past The order is rapidly fadin'. And the first one now will later be last For the times they are a-changin'. - (Bob Dylan, 1963) A period of unprecedented change is upon us. From the micro-world of our personal finance and local economy to the macro-world of international development, the way things get done today is fundamentally different from the way things got accomplished even five years ago. Online marketing and the methods used by marketers are changing. Search marketing has expanded from the humble but mysterious artful science days to be a more professional, precise and predictable service. With so much change on the horizon, it is often a good idea to scope the scenery to see how it is being affected. As we will all soon read about, the global economic shift is no longer eminent, it is in full swing and it is affecting the lives of everyone on Earth, even those not directly involved with the Internet. Often faster than a phone call and far more practical than a fax machine, the Internet has provided anyone with a digital signal access to the global international debate over who exactly should control the Internet. Regardless of who controls the conventions that make it operate, its evolution is virtually dependent on what tools and processes users choose to adopt. Compared to previous eras, the introduction of new tools and processes is relatively easy. This is especially true when you happen to be the most dominant player in the game. This has been a tremendous week for Google. Monday's introduction of scaling back of the paid-advertising unit Ask established in August. It will also impact established Analytics firms such as WebTrends and ClickTracks, (a package we continue to use and recommend to clients). To make a long and developing story short, Google Analytics is a website / business management tool that provides a wide variety of statistics and information about how visitors use a website. It also provides webmasters displaying AdSense extra support with the aim of making more money by helping advertisers and ad-distributors convert site visitors into billable click-throughs. Today's beta release of Google Base is the next shoe to drop on a market reeling from recent changes. Google Base has been called the Index of all indices, a reference to the concept that Google is preparing to merge and present information from any variety of sources. According to Google, it is simply another way to get information into the Google search database, especially useful for submitters who don't maintain their own websites. In practical terms, Google Base appears to be a way to submit a list of virtually anything from free information to expensive items. In short, Google Base seems designed to cover all bases. The introduction of Google Analytics and Google Base add a new dimension to Google as the leading global information provider. They also do one other, somewhat unexpected thing. Combined with other features and tools Google uses to narrow or funnel information searches such as Local search, geo-mapping, and comparison-shopping (Froogle), Google is decidedly staking its turf atop this next wave of search facilitated global-commerce. Search Marketers, like the industry we work in need to evolve along the leading edge and as of this week, Google is it. The next few months should be very busy ones for search marketing firms as they rush to market services based on Google Analytics and Google Base. Current clients of search marketing firms should seriously consider contacting their SEM vendor to arrange time for inclusion of service or product offering at Google Base. They should also think about having their search marketing firm install the Google Analytics script and monitor information to fine-tune marketing campaigns. Google's innovative good fortune doesn't put rivals Yahoo, MSN and ASK out of the picture as each remains an important component in search marketing and any one of them could introduce a superior product. Yahoo itself has an amazing product in the StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth is the result of the consolidation of BraveArt Website Management, Promotion Experts, and Phoenix Creative Works, and has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. http://www.stepforth.com/ Tel - 250-385-1190 Toll Free - 877-385-5526 Fax - 250-385-1198