Holistic Technology Enabled Internet Marketing Solutions

By now you’ve already hear that Microsoft has made an incredible bid of $45 billion to pick up Yahoo. Some call it an offer Yahoo can’t refuse, but what does it mean for your business online?

While in general monopolies have never proven to be great for the little guys, a combined Yahoo-Microsoft effort would either produce a viable competitor to the Goog or continue a tailspin of diminishing relevance, leaving Google the #1 search engine by default, not choice. With Google already enforcing strict policies about paid links and essentially defining how thousands of webmasters develop their sites, the latter situation would create a hazardous environment for business owners who have desires for their sites that at odds with Google’s policies.

Now to Google’s credit, their standards for websites are generally pretty good ones — build sites for users, avoid using duplicate content, have a reliable site, etc. However, what checks and balances will there be if the organic search world is a one-company show? Especially as Google stretches its fingers into acquiring information and media properties, the neutrality of this web behemoth is going to become ever more a subject of scrutiny… and legitimate concern.

On the other hand, even a more influential Google will have to contend with the emerging power of social networks, which is exactly where a Microsoft-Yahoo would be strong. The savvy website owner — that is, you — will be wise to keep working on a site which drives in diverse sources of traffic, and answers all of the questions your customers typically have. Though it’s also not a bad idea to make an appearance in social media circles!

Well all know that technology changes will abruptly alter how we approach web marketing, and though the tactics will differ depending on how organic search companies butt heads, the bottom line will always be reaching your customers. Keep speaking the message your customers want to hear — no matter the medium — and success will follow you.

Whether Florida or a “weather update,” when algorithms change, the web forums light up. Today’s question we talk a little bit about why this happens and why you should focus on producing quality, not riding the algo-train.

The New York Times reports this morning that Google has unveiled a system to automatically prevent copyrighted videos being uploaded to YouTube. This system looks to be an olive branch in what’s turned into a bitter battle between Google and major media companies, including everyone from Disney, CBS, NBC to Viacom and Time Warner.

The system uses a fingerprinting technology, where media creators would upload content to Google’s servers. Google’s software, in turn, creates a fingerprint which is checked against any files that a user attempts to upload. If the file too closely matches the fingerprint, the upload is blocked.

The opinions of media representatives about the technology range from the lukewarm to the dubious, and for good reason. While from a copyright-owner perspective it’s nice to see Google taking a serious move towards blocking free uploads of copyrighted video clips, their position has long been that their position as a sharing-service is protected by the 1998 DMCA. Google is happy to remove copyrighted clips when alerted to their presence, but the lack of a cohesive, thorough means of blocking these uploads has frustrated media companies and lead to accusations of Google’s profiting off this copyrighted material (by having a service that is more popular because of the unauthorized content).

While the record-companies continue to wage war against file-sharing even as the future of DRM grows more and more dubious, it’s clear that the copyright battle is just beginning for video media. And Google, as much as they can within legal limits, is standing on the side of more open sharing and proliferation than the media companies that risk losing a lot more with this emerging technology.

For anyone keeping up with tech/industry news, this week has been a non-stop bout of fascinating, possibly ground-breaking news. What does it have to do with search? Well, potentially quite a lot.

First on the chopping block was talk of a potential takeover of Dow Jones (publisher of the Wall Street Journal) by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. About as soon as this landslide of a story hit, rumors buzzed that Google was also considering a takeover. Regardless of what actually happens here, the idea that a sale of this magnitude is even being considered points to the radical changes in power of print and online media.

Speaking of Google, competitors Microsoft and Yahoo are trying as ever to find ways to dethrone the ubiquitous search engine. While $50 billion is no slim price tag, the takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft would certainly escalate the search engine wars to a level we’ve yet to experience. With Google recently declared #1 web property, Microsoft is obviously going to do whatever it takes to secure their presence again.

Finally, democratic news-site Digg got to experience how determined people are to make information freely accessible on the Internet. The short news byte — Digg pulled stories publishing a hack to HD-DVD encryption after receiving a cease-and-desist letter by copyright holders, and the users were offended enough to go to great extremes to publicize the hack regardless. In fact, the sudden case of censorship resorted in the sensitive information suddenly becoming one of the most popular stories on the Internet. Digg, at length, rescinded their position and now vows to stand by even if the case goes to court.

What this all points to (connecting a variety of dots here) is the increasing importance of the Internet and the phenomenal shift in power from printed, editor-reviewed content to rapidly propagatable, user-controlled media that with very little monitoring can influence hundreds of thousands. And what a terrifying and incredible ride it is.