Online Advertising Should Grow Up

A piece from the New York Times has reignited the debate over online advertising and the monetization of the “long tail” of the Web, one that got a boost recently with a post from Jeremy Liew, a venture capitalist at Lightspeed Venture Partners, who noted that in order to build a business with $50-million in revenue — pretty small beer in most circles — a…

High Rankings SEM Seminar Pictures

Day one of the Minneapolis High Rankings seminar went well and I think the presentations were well received. One thing I think I did not emphasize is that the speakers are not only subject matter experts, but they’re skilled at instruction as well

Roundup: Cisco and WebEx Analysis

By now, any interested reader should have been able to get their fill of of news stories about the Cisco acquisition of WebEx. Overly cautious types will point out that this is not a done deal, merely a tendered offer accepted by WebEx management. WebEx shareholders could vote it down or another company could come in with a higher competitive buyout offer. The odds are…

Why Branding Matters in B2B Marketing

Strewn around my house are pens, coffee cups, calculators, USB memory sticks, and assorted swag from various companies I've met over the years. What is the purpose of all this stuff? Does having a leather portfolio with a vendor's logo on it make me more likely to buy their products?

Resurrect Jeeves, Ask How Not To Slam Google

Here's the thing about boldness: you'd better have the chops to back it up. While Ask.com's anti-Google guerrilla marketing campaign in London's Underground was outed in record time, indexing of its own campaign site was even close to a record. Background Ads appearing in the Tube encouraged bystanders to fight Google's "information monopoly."