iWebEarth

Yahoo is also responding to the challenges posed by search refinements being carried out by its competitors. So, it just introduced a refinement to its Image Search service by way of what it calls as travel image refiner. This sort of acts as a virtual navigator to travel spots if you search for them on Yahoo Image Search.

The Yahoo Travel Image Refiner allows users to explore various points of interest related to specific travel areas including contextual information about these destinations.

It’s a pretty simple search filter enhancement actually. So when a user enters the search term “Paris”, the search results page will include a navigation link on the left of the page listing down various points of interest related to the main search.

Clicking on the travel image refiner will pull out various images related to the specific points of interest. From there users can explore the different images and get a sort of virtual tour of the travel area.  Clicking on images from other sites will bring up a framed page  with the top frame containing the Yahoo Image exploration tab and the lower frame containing the page where the image was culled from. Users also have the option to turn off the upper Yahoo tab anytime.

The Yahoo Image Refiner currently works with location-specific searches but Yahoo is planning to roll it out with other types of images soon.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Yahoo! Rolls Out Travel Image Search Refiner

Last week we reviewed a new smart Twitter monetization service called TweetROI. This week we are discussing it with one of the creators, our very talented guest contributor, Brian Carter:

How long did it take you to brainstorm the concept?

The initial idea came in a flash, back in December 2008: “Word of mouth advertising on steroids via recommendations by influential twitterers”

About a year before we all saw the controversial mess of Magpie… or at least, how much some people hated it. People were unfollowing anybody that had a #magpie hashtag in their tweets. I had no plan to get involved in this kind of thing.

But one weekend night in December 2008, I was working too late and had the idea of having twitterers write their own messages- creating a Twitter-based recommendation-engine, word of mouth advertising accelerated- that came to me in a flash. My idea was to create a situation that both tweeter and marketers would like, that was beneficial for both- the ROI in TweetROI means “return on influence”- the goal is for twitterers, their followers, and marketers ALL to benefit from these tweets. If anyone is getting left out, the system isn’t complete. But we’ve created a platform that’s like PPC for social media- and it can satisfy all those groups.

What was the most difficult thing about brainstorming and launching the new project?

I think the biggest problem was that this is a completely new form of systematized marketing – people have been marketing on Twitter, but creating a system that brings marketers and twitterers together? There are only a few companies that have tried to do it. I think of this as how the late 90’s were for pay per click. It’s the frontier right now. We’re monetizing real time social media and trying to do so without ruining conversations.

And we have a lot of different people to make happy, so there’s been a lot of brainstorming new solutions, programming, and testing to get everything to work. For example, twitterers want to be authentic and keep their followers, marketers want positive word of mouth, followers don’t want to get spammed, the FTC may want disclosure on every tweet, and so on. Getting functionality in place for all of that to happen has been arduous. Kevin McCallum, my cofounder and the lead programmer, deserves major kudos for his hard work and innovative code. But he likes a challenge

How is it different from Magpie?

The major differences are in control, authenticity, power, and flexibility. A few weeks ago, I would have said it’s that twitterers can control the message, so they’re not just giving over their tweetstream like Magpie asks you to. Being able to write your own recommendation and get paid creates more authenticity. But Magpie just added that, and IZEA’s sponsored tweets will have it too. It looks like we’re going to be in a feature race! We launched with other features like collaborative scheduling and a tweet approval process.

But what’s really unique about us is that Marketers can bid more for more influential twitterers. We do that via a proprietary system of four UserRank algorithms. You can bid for more reach, conversation, or viral effect.

We have more features planned for the future to make it even more like AdWords PPC and less like Magpie. But we have competitors too, so I don’t want to reveal all those plans just yet. I talked to a guy this week who was planning to spend $5 of a $60k social marketing project on Magpie, but he’s shifting at least $2k of that to us because “he likes where we’re going.” Any agency that does PPC and uses analytics is going to appreciate our approach.

Our focus is on quality and ROI. And our goal is to make all three parties happy: twitterers, their followers, and marketers. We think that’s the way to the greatest success for everyone.

What about the controversy of paid tweeting? How are you handling transparency?

We’ve spent a lot of time looking for the best solutions to make everyone happy there. First, I think some people will never be satisfied- some people believe that everyone who gets paid becomes inauthentic. To those people I say, well your boss pays you… has he or she made you less authentic? Look at your own heart. Contrary to what these people say, there are honest people who can recommend an offering on Twitter and get paid, and yes, they sleep just fine at night.

We also know that the FTC seems to have said that bloggers who are paid to do reviews should disclose that. Before we assume that will be applied to real-time media as well, I want to say I’m not sure that the FTC is being consistent across all media. Does the athlete on the Wheaties box disclose that they were paid? Does it say on the Wheaties box that the athlete was paid? Did Paul Harvey say he was being paid when he suddenly launched into a commercial during his radio program? Does Rush Limbaugh? It’s funny really- do we think that athlete actually eats Wheaties? Do we care? This is a larger discussion than just Twitter- it’s bigger than the internet too. But we’re not planning to fight the FTC, so…

We’re ready for disclosure in every tweet. I’m not sure if hashtags are adequate, but that’s all we have right now, and we only have 140 characters to work with anyway. So we have a hashtag #ROI that marketers can require- if a tweeter chooses a campaign like this, it goes in the tweet and the tweeter can’t take it out. If the marketer doesn’t require it, the tweeter can put it in, or any other hashtag they want, themselves. Some of them have used #ad.

We’ve created the functionality- now it’s up to the marketers and twitterers. And it will be interesting to see what the FTC has to say about paid disclosure in 140 character tweets, if they do comment on it.

Also, I want to note, we’ve been working hard to get non-profits involved. I worked with Tweetsgiving, One Day for Human Rights, and 12for12k and I’ve seen the generosity of twitterers- we wanted to provide a place for non-profits to get more exposure, so they can create unpaid TweetROI campaigns. twitterers can send out these tweets altruistically. I really hope that takes off. We’ve been talking to several including 12for12k and The Secure Student. One already has an active campaign, the Chicago Prostate Cancer Walk.

TweetROI is more than pay per tweet- it’s really a word of mouth messaging enabler. And money is not always involved.

Will this kill Twitter? What about spammers?

I don’t see how it could. Twitter is self-policing. You can unfollow anyone you want. If a tweeter using TweetROI annoys you, just unfollow them. You won’t see spammers saying anything unless you follow them. So that goes to basic good practice- don’t autofollow back every hot girl that follows you- they’re probably a spammer anyway. I’m a big believer in manually following people. Check out their tweetstream, and if all you see is ads, don’t follow them!

One of the great things about TweetROI is it amplifies that self-policing aspect of Twitter. twitterers get paid more for being more influential. If they lose followers, they lose influence, and they’re not going to get paid as much for their tweets. The money goes away, and so will they.

Is this really a good way for companies to market?

I think TweetROI is one of the missing pieces in social marketing. I can tell you the pain points for mid-sized and small businesses – because a lot of the social marketing success stories are about big brands with big money that already had momentum to leverage – I’ve done a lot of SEO and PPC work for the small and medium sized businesses, and when you think about how they could do social media marketing- the amount of time, expertise, planning it takes… Months and months go by and you’re still building your network, building relationships, replying to people, and you barely have gotten any ROI. It could take you a year to grow your network big enough to produce good ROI. Will you keep doing it and funding it for that long?

TweetROI lets you leapfrog over some of that growth curve. You can leverage the influence of people who already have followers and relationships. You can use that to get more followers, to brand yourself, to make an offer, or whatever your strategy is.

People are already talking about all kinds of things on Twitter and these people need what your business has. TweetROI gets these people talking about you, your product, your service, your website. Our marketers are already getting results. One marketer made a profit within his first six paid tweets. I think the affiliate marketers are going to eat this up- but we’ll be ready for Coke, Budweiser, and McDonald’s too.

Also, TweetROI is a great PR platform too. Only some of the campaigns will be direct marketing. You can also use it for branding, PR, and charities. I think one great use would be for Hollywood to get the word out in a big burst right before a movie’s opening weekend.

Is there anything different about marketing on Twitter than other channels?

Definitely. First- if you’re a company, it gets weird- who’s the voice of your profile? Is it one person or many? Or do you have multiple people on Twitter like Zappos or the Chicago Tribune? Or do you want to leverage many diverse voices via TweetROI?

Then, it’s people saying it. It’s not a PPC ad. It’s not a print ad. It’s not some person on TV. It’s a real person on Twitter talking to other real people on Twitter. That’s why we like the idea of customized recommendations creating word of mouth advertising on steroids. That means you can use your writing skills and your personality, but you can’t forget you’re having a conversation. You can write multiple ads as a marketer, just like PPC people test multiple ads on AdWords, and some will be more effective than others, but remember: you’re starting a conversation.

Everybody knows that traditional push advertising is losing effectiveness. People are going numb to advertising. And word of mouth advertising has always been the best kind. But people are seven times more likely to say something negative about a product to a friend than something positive. Bring the monetary reward into it evens that equation out. Now people have more of a reason to say something positive. I don’t think that’s going to drown out the negative if your offering really sucks. But it could help you if your problem is lack of awareness or lack of attention. More exposure, more conversation, more buzz.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Interview with Brian Carter on TweetROI and Overall Marketing on Twitter

Yahoo and Microsoft merger rumors are heating up again as Yahoo board members were reportedly at the table again yesterday, discussing a partnership between Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing Search Technology. It feels like it has been years since the Yahoo Microsoft search rumors started heating up, and over that time Yahoo has been stripped down more of an efficient content & search driven entity, while Microsoft has vastly improved its internal search technology with the launch of Bing.

Coupled with recent news of a 17% Microsoft plunge in sales last quarter, which will assist Yahoo’s leverage in these negotiations, perhaps the time for a merger or partnership is now.

Via paidContent :

The 13 percent drop in the company’s online services division was driven by a 14 percent drop in online advertising sales largely due to weakness in display ads, executives said. Search revenue, however, was flat compared to a year ago and page views were up.

One interesting change in events is Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz changing her stance on Microsoft Search, in a statement which may foreshadow a new deal between the two companies :

“I actually think Bing is a good product. I think they’ve done a good job, but unfortunately they are only a month into it. I think Microsoft should be given kudos for Bing.”

This statement by Bartz is a bit different than her statement on Bing from only a month ago (via Ars) :

“I don’t know if Bing means a whole lot to Yahoo. I think people will go to Bing because they are curious. I think they will get some uplift, but people will keep their same habits.”

Sounds like a bit of a political change of mindset to me. Will these kind words from Bartz help open up more dialog between Yahoo and Microsoft? That decision is ultimately up to Yahoo, but with concerns over the legality of a partnership, or rather if the partnership will be held up by regulators, may slow down such a decision.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Time for a Yahoo Microsoft Search Partnership

YouTube is now letting video owners share stats from its analytics tool YouTube Insights.  This includes stats on total views, number of ratings and other metrics that show how video contents are used on YouTube.  Whereas before, important stats such as video popularity, geographic audience and viewer demographics about YouTube videos are visible only to their owners through YouTube Insight now users will be give the option to make their video stats open to the public eyes or to remain in private viewing status.If a YouTube video content uploader has opted to share video stats, other users can see the video’s metrics under the “statistics & data” section just below the YouTube video watch page.

By activating this feature, YouTube aims to help video owners generate more page views and make their video content more interesting to other users by engaging them with those valuable stats. In addition,  for video owners who are also YouTube’s content partners, these stats would help them attract more advertisers.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

YouTube Now Lets You Share Insight Stats

I’ve been previously reviewing some useful tools to help with international browsing – obviously, the best and the most powerful tool for that is Google Translate. Luckily, there are a few cool tools that help to easier access Google Translate:

Integrate with FireFox:

Apart from official Google toolbar, there’s another great FireFox addon allowing to easier translate web pages. gTranslate is a handy FireFox extension that adds Google Translate to your browser: just select any text, right-click on it, choose "Translate" and you are done!

• Automatically identifies the language of the original text.
• Detects the "lang" attribute of the of the selected text (or the whole page).
• Automatically detects the destination language as the browser locale language.
• Translates image title or alt attributes.

Integrate with Gtalk:

If you have to often translate some language units, you should consider adding one of the translating robots to your Gtalk list (I already mentioned this tip in my Gtalk tools list).

Just add any of the bots below (there may be many more) and send them messages of the text you want to translate):

Integrate with Open Office:

If you happen to use OpenOffice, you should install the Writer’s extension which uses Google Translate (hat tip to MUO):

Any more tips on using Google Translate? Please share them in the comments!

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Tools to Easier Access Google Translate

As Howard Stern’s intern I spent months at the center of the adult entertainment industry meeting the people who have conquered an incredibly competitive niche.  Everyone already knows porn pushes the boundaries on technology to deliver content to eager consumers, but how is this technological push fairing online and where is the evidence of its next movement?

According to Google trends, more people are searching for the keyword “porn” than in previous years:

And yet if you look at the Alexa rankings (formulated on pageviews & time spent on site) for pornographic websites, they continue to be pushed further down by social networking sites.  Of the top 100 sites today, only four are pornography websites:

* Source

Porn seems not that hot any more…

Clearly, the proportion of people searching for porn related material is growing at a smaller rate than the overall online population.  In comparison to the number of people getting online, there is less activity in the sex industry and more for social networking and communication.  In short, the Internet is no longer the seedy back alley it was in 1995.

So if it’s not growing in number of pageviews, in what way is the adult industry expanding?  What’s the next horizon?  Long tail keyword satisfaction is one way.  With so many subcultures and genres, porn sites have been doing an amazing job catching those specific interests ranging between everything from furries to adult babies, Gorians to Amazons.

In word tracker, the term “dirty” produces a list of 100 most searched for keyword terms.  Among these 100 keyword terms, 46 of them are made up of 3 or more words; averaging between 2,535 and 159 clicks per day according to Google’s daily estimate.   That’s a lot of high volume, incredibly specific for long tail keyword terms.

Monetization?

And how is adult content monetizing on these finely tuned audiences?  According to major movie studios like Vivid and Digital Playground, the answer is in subscriptions for films with less of a plot line and more sex scenes.  Especially in their free online content that they hope to convert into paying subscribers Vivid has found that audiences want to see the action without the foreplay, cutting to the chase as quickly as possible.

This certainly resonates with me as an internet marketer, supplying visitors with a taste of what they want before asking them to sign up/purchase/download (however you measure conversions).  Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of Vivid also spoke about catering to short attention spans and the need to constantly promote fresh content, “The average attention span is three to five minutes. We have to cater to that.”  Like with any good site, producing new content keeps visitors returning frequently, which Vivid is trying to convert into paid subscribers.

However, a quick browse over the free video site YouPorn.com makes me think Hirsch’s convictions about short spurts of content have less to do with visitor interest, and more to do with the fact his company is trying to sell subscriptions to content which users like me can get for free on YouPorn.  The second most popular video on YouPorn with over 1.3 million hits is over 30 minutes long!  Clearly attention spans can be captured lo, credit card details on paid sites like Vivid are struggling.

Finally, what is next?

Porn conquered the internet, was on the cutting edge of streaming video, where is the industry to go?  The answer is social networking sites for outreach, mobile phones for personal contact, and virtual worlds for experimentation.

Regarding social media – Twitter, Tumblr, and Jaiku are crawling with pretty lonely girls with 1 avatar photo and hundreds of followers.  Stumble Upon has an entire many tags based on erotica, erotica stories, and nudity.  And online communities like “adultfriendfinder” are entirely dedicated to satisfying certain tastes and connecting with likeminded users.

As more users sign up for mobile internet, the mobile market continues to grow.  Sites like YouPorn.com and affiliate portals including Brazzers have mobile sites geared specifically to customers on the move.  There are even vibrating iPhone apps!

What I’ve found most interesting is the virtual worlds where anonymity means users may cloak their long tail sexual interests.  Most notably, Second Life has become a bastion of sorts for Furries, people who identify and live by an animal alias.  In Second Life, furries can live out their fantasies and connect with others interested in the same erm… activities.

Lets take a step back on from the furries to look at virtual role playing in general – How can marketers move forward interacting with people so engaged with a bunch of pixels?  In the same way Facebook developers are now making widgets, virtual reality users are willing to pay to customize their virtual lives.  So creating those customized accents, which in turn promote client products, are definitely a winning game plan.

In the case of Second Life, there is an application to create custom genitalia called SexGen.  The creator Kevin Alderman, proclaimed to be “Second Life’s Porn Mogul”, explains “the group members and the supporters are really the driving force. They tell us what they would like to see and we do our damnedest to make it happen.”

And isn’t that what we all need to be focusing on?  Customizable answers for the increasingly choosey consumer.  It doesn’t matter if  you’re selling genitalia for a giant purple fox avatar or something a little more mainstream, pin pointing customers increasingly specific needs is the goal.  Social media is clearly the method of outreach, the adult industry is utilizing those social networking sites.  However, the film studios clearly have an up hill battle – with so much free content online often submitted by anyone with a video camera, they’ll have to convince consumers their product is worth the money.

Ultimately, the adult industry is changing tracks from subscription based online havens to user-generated content.  Content from sites like youporn and what can be found in virtual worlds and online networks reflects how users can connect directly and be in control of how content evolves.

Chelsea Blacker is a London based search consultant currently working at Base One Search With a background in SEO & PPC cultivated at Promediacorp in NYC, Chelsea focuses on engaging B2B brands in social media and online PR.

If you want to further procrastinate from getting on with your real work, check out her current Marketing Pilgrim post You Know You Work in Search When… or say hi to her on twitter @ChelseaBlacker

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Porn: Still Leading Online Advertising?

I have previously over-viewed best free web-based software allowing to easily create online surveys and today I decided to focus on a new player – the one that has been launched only recently but already got some really positive publicity from really powerful blogs like Profy and WebWorkerDaily.

ProProfs Polls is a new feature-rich polls maker you should try out. It is really easy, yet has plenty of options you won’t find anywhere else:

• Make your polls more entertaining and engaging by adding media: ProProfs Polls maker supports Flickr integration as well as other types of rich media content;
• Totally free: once you create an account, you can create an unlimited number of polls with unlimited number of votes: hardly can you find so many free features with no limits.
• In-depth analytics: analyze your poll-takers by county and state.

Well, analytics feature is what I naturally would like to review in more detail:

1. View results only from one country:

2. View the pollsters location map:

3. Sort results by city and state or by IP address:

You are welcome to try it out and share your opinion!

The tool was reviewed under SEJ policy.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Learn Your Blog Readers’ Opinion with ProProfs Polls

The word is out, Yahoo has acquired XoopIt. Well for those of us who have heard of XoopIt just now, it’s a third-party app that won Yahoo’s Open Hack Day in December which Yahoo has teamed up with to develop Yahoo Mail’s “MyPhotos” app. If you don’t know how “MyPhotos” work, it won’t do you any harm if you check it out from your Yahoo Mail account.As for Yahoo’s reason for acquiring XoopIt, Yahoo’s official corporate blog stated that this will facilitate an easier way of sending photos via Yahoo email as well as for sharing photo albums with friends and family members. XoopIt inside Yahoo Mail would help you better organize photos that you send and share via email.

Although, Yahoo is not disclosing the amount it paid for XoopIt, some sources say that it is close to $20 million. This raises some issues as to why Yahoo spent that much for a browser plug-in such as XoopIt. Another issue that arises was why Google let go of XoopIt. Yahoo after all is currently in a slump in terms of earnings and the least we expect that company to do is go on a spending spree.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Yahoo Acquires XoopIt, But Why?

Posted by great scott!

Thanks to a suggestion from @links4legends we’re strapping on our jetpacks for a bit of SEO prognostication this week. Rand offers up his take on what the future will bring for search marketers.

Will classic, content-based SEO still rule the SERPs?  Will the social graph drastically alter how results are personalized? What about query volume and traffic data: will they become major signals in the algorithms?  Will vertical search portals begin to steal users from the big three, or just get gobbled up? Will opinion-based theories die a fiery death at the hands of data-driven testing?

Who knows?! The "answers" to all of this and more await you in this week’s Whiteboard Friday (cue squiggly dissolve and space sounds).

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – The Future of SEO from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

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Posted by Sam Niccolls

The following is a compilation of some of the most newsworthy, as well as the most useful stories in and around the world of search over the last 1-2 weeks.

LifeStyle Lift’s Fake Reviews: Andrew Shotland wrote a great post about LIfeStyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company in need of a serious brand facelift themselves after being exposed for ordering employees to write fake reviews. Ethics aside, LifeStyle Lift is a great example of how costly such shady practices can be for a brand when they get caught. Now, even after paying a $300,000 fine, LifeStyle Lift still has their fare share SERP cleanup to do around their brand.

Checkbook Journalism: Gawker Founder Nick Denton said “We don’t seek to do good. We may inadvertently do good. We may inadvertently commit journalism. That is not the institutional intention.” Whether you agree with Denton’s approach, or the idea of incentivizing writers and news sources with page view compensation, at the very least, Gawker Media’s approach to news is an interesting one.

Google’s Microsoft Moment:  Just over a week ago, Matt Cutts gave a lengthy response to a great post made by Anil Dash about Google’s culture. And though it remains to be seen whether or not Obama’s antitrust cop, Christine Varney, will pursue antitrust actions against Google, each post offers an interesting perspective on how the present is a critical time for Google to prescribe to their ‘don’t be evil’ mantra.

Anonymous TechCrunch Post on Search Regulation: With a scathing review of the search industry TechCrunch’s guest author sparked quite a bit of controversy the other week. But regardless of whether or not you are of Michael Gray’s opinion, it is hard to read this post without numerous objections. This is why the author of the anonymous post deserves the uniquely German honor of ‘Deutschebag of the Week.’  Ein herzliches Dankeschön!

5 Search Tools you May Not Know About: I enjoyed using the Bing-vs-Google tool when first I discovered it. And now, after reading Matt McGhee’s post in Search Engine Land, I have a handful of other nifty SEO tools to add to my SEOmoz tool set. Not the least interesting of which is SearchMuffin, which shows Google SERPs in any city, regardless of what location you are searching from.

Perform Better with AdSense: In a detailed blog post that is informative for both newbie and experienced AdSense partners, Smashing Magazine outlines just about everything you would ever need to know about AdSense. This is a particularly great Saturday morning read for anyone looking to increase AdSense revenue to their website or blog.

Sharing Links: Inside Facebook reported using AddtoAny data that Facebook is the most popular way to share links on the web. According to this data, 24% of all links shared on the web are shared though Facebook. In other words, according to AddtoAny, more links are shared through Facebook than are shared on Twitter and e-mail combined.

URL Shorteners and Affiliate Programs: Amazon has stopped giving affiliate commissions on visits via Twitter and Facebook, but where should the line in the sand be drawn? In his post, Dave Naylor talks about the subject of affiliate commission on URL shorteners.

The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship: Jay Goltz of the New York Times addresses the sobering realities of starting a business through the story of an electrical engineer turned CEO in Chicago who loses it all. This story offers an interesting, and timely juxtaposition to yesterday’s news of Amazon’s blockbuster acquisition of Zappos.

Google Autocannibalism: A ridiculous yet amusing concept that outlines an autocannibalistic model where Google could be made to eat itself. Get money, buy stock. Get money, buy stock. Ahhh… I see, it’s so simple. It’s in the computer.

Google Mini Appliance: Michael Cottam outlines his frustrations with Google’s webserver in a post that proclaims the appliances are overpriced, short lived, and little more than disposable search engines. And thanks to Michael’s reminder at the end of his post, we now know what to link to.  

Forecasting ROI for SEO: If you like flow charts or you have a management team that cares what kind of return you are getting on your SEO spend, the diagrams in Gab Goldenberg’s post do a great job of outlining how to calculate ROI on your SEO.

AdWords Demographic Bidding: AdWords is now enabling advertisers to control ad spend based on user demographic data. Several hoops have to be jumped through to implement GA tracking codes, but there is now an AdWords interface that allows for demographic bidding.

30 Non Google ways to get traffic to your website: From shopping search engines to Yahoo Answers, SEOptimize illustrates that there are more than a few ways to drive traffic to your website other than traditional SEO.   

Death of London Startups: Paul Carr’s post in The Guardian talks about how the geek trip Robert Scoble, Craig Newmark, Sarah Lacy and others made trip to London breathed ephemeral life into a dying startup culture. But in dramatic fashion, Carr concludes that the London startup scene is dead. Is this true? Any thoughts on this from our friends across the pond?

Employers Should Not Give Bonuses: I had strong initial objections to Alfie Cohn’s article. But the New York Times author (ear muffs, Rand, ear muffs.) offers some compelling reasons as to why rewards will likely not lead to higher performance.

The Psychology of Restaurant Menus: Last month Jeff Sexton of FutureNow wrote a post where he took examples of real world billboards and described how marketers could incorporate effective billboard tactics into online banner ad creation. Liz Kay’s post in the Baltimore Sun about what advertisers and consumers can learn from the manipulation of restaurant menus is a similarly interesting read.

And last, but certainly not least, there were some great entries on YouMoz over the last couple weeks. From MichaelC breaking down dynamic landing pages to Roadies addressing brand management through the example of United Airlines, there was a wide array of interesting posts. Keep ‘em coming this week!!! We are always looking for standout posts to promote to the main blog.

1. Dynamic Landing Pages: Optimizing for Natural Search by MichaelC

2. 7 Reasons Why You Should NOT Use Google Analytics by Nicki Hicks

3. Choosing Your Brand — Two Case Studies of Different Methods by Raaboo

4. SEOmoz: It’s like a Digital Florida by Ciaran

5. Dear United, Here’s Your Chance for Awesome Reputation Management by Roadies

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Have an article or blog post that would be great for next week’s post? If so, send me a direct message on Twitter or tweet about it and include @samniccolls in your tweet.

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