Online Marketing Strategies from MarketerInsight

Technical and Information Giants with Danny Sullivan, Matt Cutts and Kirsten Mangers

Looking forward to this session as the panel is awesome.

We have an opportunity to see a video featuring various clips referencing search in media today. Very funny South Park clips. As a side note, this session is available on WebmasterRadio.fm for those that want to listen.

Internet-based technologies have shaped the way we seek, collect, and share information. Before innovations can be exploited for marketing purposes, somebody has to build them. More importantly, somebody has to need them. Key innovators, movers, and shakers discuss how the past will shape our future and attempt to answer some of the biggest questions in search. What are the most important changes in the space that you should be aware of? How will the decisions made today affect our marketing and communication efforts in the future?

The first question is about the history of the web and how  we got here. Immediately, conversation has turned to what  Google killer is and how you support this idea from an infrastructure perspective. Danny Sullivan indicates that Microsoft would be the logical candidate but they have tried for the last 5 years with limited success. Danny predicts that there will be incremental Google killers that will be acquired or improved upon by Google. Matt Cutts added that when he left his studies to come to Google he could not find the office and when he did, it was a small room with a desk and a PowerPoint presentation.

Discussion has turned to the data that Google has and how they use it to develop new products as well as there brand being unmatched. Most people don’t care about search or how they search, they just want what they want when they want it…Google provides this experience.

The moderator is now reading off stats about how Google is huge in so many categories. One question is… does Google focus on internal resource development or acquiring technology. Matt Cutts says they do both. Google focuses on scale. Matt references his office mate Ben when he does studies the aggregate volume of data has differences can be huge.

Panelist are discussing the “live” web and how people can search twitter in real time vs. the way Google provides search results. Conversation around local and what that means is a hot topic. Some people are defining local as extension of reach and distribution or find. Urban Spoon is an example of this concept. Local search has a “long way to go” according to the panel due to the mass of data and the usability of that data. Some of the open formats for “local” have a huge opportunity based on where the users are going with the market. This could be an additional layer placed on top of today’s web.

“How do you make things relevant?” Matt talks about broadband and wireless and how these things have improved our life. He cites that 70% of all phones will be smartphones in the next 10 years. Everybody will have them and is this where local will go?

Tim Westergren from Pandora indicated that their business went up significantly when they launched an iPhone app. Discussions still are focused on what local search is and is not.

Kevin Ryan has interjected to change the topic back to “the motherload” as search. The panelist are discussing various examples on how search is being used today. The way people use search and re-search to get what they want quickly is real. Search is right on by providing exactly what someone is looking for vs. traditional outlets that try to push messaging to a “proposed” audience.

Matt Cutts talks about the future of search that delivers a result like this; when ever you search you get a result that creates an awareness opportunity based on where you are.

We are now fielding questions from the audience.