I came across an advertisement for Google’s “Chrome” Web browser today that I found to be delightfully creative, well made, and worth sharing. From what I was able to gather, the spot was done by BBH in New York and it offers an interesting introduction to the browser for those who are unfamiliar with it.

In the past few weeks Chrome has become significantly more important to follow due to some new statistics released at the beginning of the month. According to Net Applications, Chrome surpassed Apple’s Safari browser in market share, which is surprising considering it’s only been available as a public stable release since December of 2008; Safari 1.0 was released in June of 2003. I’ve found that Chrome offers a quick and lightweight experience that’s great if you’re just browsing.

From a Web development perspective, Firefox still reigns king due to all of the fantastic extensions (add-ons) that are available to assist with the process. Most developers, including myself, loathe Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (version 6 in particular) because it fails to comply with several of the standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and it took Microsoft 5 years to release a new version. The companies behind most of the other popular browsers release nightly builds, which gives me, and many other developers, the impression that Microsoft is apathetic toward new Web technologies, languages, and standards; or at least they were for several years. Microsoft has shown improvement in its browser lately but that 5 year gap from version 6 to 7 is what is really frightening. As long as Microsoft continues to dominate the market, I can’t help but feel that we are being held back – support for HTML 5, CSS3, and WOFF is especially interesting but it will probably be at least 5 years before they are widely used because of old browser versions. What’s worse is that in many corporate environments, Internet Explorer version 6 is the only browser that employees are allowed to use due to outdated custom programs or simply the costs involved with rolling out a company-wide update.

Many people most likely don’t understand that not each browser renders code the same way. The biggest differences are seen between Internet Explorer and the others. Version 6 of Internet Explorer is so bad that extra time always needs to be reserved for special workarounds and hacks to fix issues specific to the browser, which can seem rather gratuitous considering that it’s now almost 9 years old. The Web evolves so quickly from one year to the next and dealing with such an old browser can seem frustrating. As alternative browsers like Chrome and Firefox continue to grow in popularity, Microsoft will need to prove it can adapt or should simply step aside completely.

If you’re interested in trying out alternative browsers, use the following links to lean more and to download them:

Chrome, Firefox, Opera

Thanks to infomercials, dishonest advertisers, and lazy consumers we now have new FTC guidelines to consider when creating ads, websites, blogging, tweeting, and generally speaking our minds. [Disclaimer: the views expressed by this poster do not represent the views of the agency, its ownership, clients, certainly not our PR crew, and not even myself after getting caught up in a Woot-Off during the holiday season.]  A press release announcing the new guidelines and a link to download the guidelines themselves can be downloaded from the FTC website (in the lower right related info box or just follow this link to download the Text of the Revised Endorsement and Testimonial Guides).

Some highlights:

• Section 255.1.d – advertisers and endorsers are subject to liability for, among other things, not disclosing material connections.
• Section 255.5 describes how and when to disclose material connections.  Example 1 outlines a case in which a drug company commissions a lab to perform research on a product and shares the expenses.  Even though the drug company doesn’t have a say in the design and conduct of the research they must still disclose the payment of expenses.  The reason: “the weight consumers place on the reported results of the research could be materially affected by knowing the advertiser has funded the project.”  Of course if they perform the research internally, the results are sure to be biased.  What’s a drug company to do?  Any good “free” drug research labs out there?
• Contrast that with Example 2 where a film star endorses a product.  Even if the star is receiving a $1MM lump sum or royalties for each product sold … they don’t need to disclose that because “such payments likely are ordinarily expected by viewers”.  Huh?  Are we to assume all celebrity’s are on the take or just film stars?  Perhaps the FTC is making a push for celebrity endorsements.  If there is a material connection between the Screen Actors Guild and the FTC would they be obligated to disclose that?
• Example 3 in Section 255.5 describes a scenario in which a well-known pro tennis player who is a paid spokesperson for an eye clinic touts the results of her surgery and mentions the clinic by name.  ”Given the nature of the medium in which her endorsement is disseminated, consumers might not realize that she is a paid endorser.  Because that information might affect the weight consumers give to her endorsement, her relationship with the clinic should be disclosed.”  That answers one question — according to the FTC film stars are a different class of celebrity — and raises another.  What is it about the nature of the medium that clouds the vision of consumers?

Last week’s stack of generally uninteresting vendor mail included an “IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE” from a company in a southern MN, near my home town.  Feeling some sense of intrigue and obligation I decided to read before filing in the plastic bin at my feet.  Turns out some folks won a settlement against Yahoo! relating to Sponsored Search and Content Match ad placement.  They claim the terms of service were violated when Yahoo! allowed these ads to be displayed on spyware, domain parking pages, pop-ups/unders, and typosquatting sites.  Naughty naughty!  After years of litigation, millions of pages and hundreds of GB of documentation provided by Yahoo!, testimony from both sides, and all that shtuff, a settlement was reached.

So, what does this mean for all involved?  Here’s the breakdown.

• General public – Yahoo! agreed to develop an “Ad Placement Option” (name subject to change blah blah blah), whereby customers can specify that ads purchased may only be displayed on Yahoo! owned properties or “Premium” distribution partners.  The timetable for the launch of this new option is “as early as the first quarter of 2010, but in no event later than September 30, 2010″, and they agree to maintain the option for at least two years from the launch … or (almost forgot about this part) until the agreement with Microsoft is finalized.  So, in theory, and legally, it may never materialize.  Yahoo! also agreed to post more information about where ads may appear on the Traffic Quality portion of it’s site.
• Class Members still in business – nothing in particular.  It’s not about the money though, it’s the principle.
• Class Members out of business – a $20 refund – the cost of a stamp.  Yahoo! indeed.
• Class Representatives – these three (also referred to as “several”, not the more precise “few”, in the IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE) will be awarded $10,000 each.
• Class Counsel – $4,170,000 plus expenses totaling about $100,000.  Remember, it’s not just about the money.  It’s about the principal and the resulting interest, dividends, and taxes.
• Yahoo! – total estimated outlay is $4.3 million plus the $20 payments to class members now out of business.

Learn more about the case and the settlement at www.inreyahoosettlement.com.

Sometimes you may want to use a text/html module to display login and register links to unathenticated users. This is actually quite easy using the standard text/html module, with token replacement turned on.

1. Start by adding a new text/html module to your page.
2. In the module settings, change the display to “Unauthenticated Users”.
3. In the module settings, check the box for “Replace Tokens” at the bottom of the form, click update.
4. Select Edit Text (or Edit Content) and switch to the source (HTML) view. Paste in the code below:

   <p>To view this section, you must be a registered member of this site.</p>
   <a href=”[Tab:FullUrl]?returnurl=[Tab:FullUrl]&amp;ctl=login”>Login</a>
   <a href=”[Tab:FullUrl]?returnurl=[Tab:FullUrl]&amp;ctl=register”>Register Now</a>

5. Click update.

The important parts to these links are the current tab url token [Tab:FullUrl] and specifying the ctl parameter. The former builds the link and tells the register/login forms where to redirect after submission. The latter loads the page with only the appropriate control, stripping out all other modules that would normally be on the page. This snippet can be used on any page on your site, since it’s dynamically grabbing the page/tab URL.

These are just some of the users for the token replacement engine in the text/html module, which can turn a normally static module into something a little more dynamic.

Here are some more tokens that can be utilized:

Sometimes in module development you want to swap controls within the same module definition.  In doing this DNN (somewhat annoyingly) swaps the Skin and Container definitions to the default admin selections.  To get around this you need to specify the SkinSrc and ContainerSrc in the URL.  This little chunk of code provides just that checking the full hierarchy for overrides:

VB.NET

Protected Function GetSkinContainerSrc() As String

    Dim strReturn As String = String.Empty
    Dim objTabs As New TabController()
    Dim objTab As DotNetNuke.Entities.Tabs.TabInfo = objTabs.GetTab(Me.TabId)

    'Get the skin source
    'Check the tab settings first.
    Dim strSkin As String = objTab.SkinSrc

    If strSkin = String.Empty Then
        'Not in the tab settings, check the portal
        strSkin = PortalSettings.PortalSkin.SkinSrc
    End If

    'Cleanup the string if it doesn't have the global/local information.
    If strSkin <> String.Empty Then
        If strSkin.IndexOf("/Portals/") >= 0 Then
            If strSkin.IndexOf("/Portals/_default/") >= 0 Then
                strSkin = "[G]" & strSkin.Substring(strSkin.IndexOf("/Skins/") + 1)
            Else
                strSkin = "[L]" & strSkin.Substring(strSkin.IndexOf("/Skins/") + 1)
            End If
        End If

        strReturn += "&SkinSrc=" & Server.UrlEncode(strSkin.Replace(".ascx", String.Empty))
    End If

    'Get the container source
    'Check the module settings for the container first.
    Dim strContainer As String = Me.ModuleConfiguration.ContainerSrc

    If strContainer = String.Empty Then
        'Not in the module, check the tab.
        strContainer = objTab.ContainerSrc

        If strContainer = String.Empty Then
            'Not in the tab, check the portal
            strContainer = PortalSettings.PortalContainer.SkinSrc
        End If
    End If

    'Cleanup the string if it doesn't have the global/local information.
    If strContainer <> String.Empty Then
        If strContainer.IndexOf("/Portals/") >= 0 Then
            If strContainer.IndexOf("/Portals/_default/") >= 0 Then
                strContainer = "[G]" & strContainer.Substring(strContainer.IndexOf("/Containers/") + 1)
            Else
                strContainer = "[L]" & strContainer.Substring(strContainer.IndexOf("/Containers/") + 1)
            End If
        End If

        strReturn += "&ContainerSrc=" & Server.UrlEncode(strContainer.Replace(".ascx", String.Empty))
    End If

    Return strReturn

End Function

Okay maybe that is pushing it but you don’t see too many 10 year partnerships in the online space. The announcement which many of us in the industry have been waiting to hear for a couple years now finally came through today. Yahoo and Microsoft signed a deal that puts them as search results partners.

In the deal Microsoft’s new Bing search engine (yes, it is actually from Microsoft even if they are have done a very good job of trying to cover that up to the general public) will provide the algorithmic results to Yahoo and the technology for how the paid search results are managed, while Yahoo will be selling the premium search ads.

The move is long-awaited even for those that didn’t necessarily see the move as a good one. What it does is put the resources of the #2 (Yahoo) and #3 (Microsoft/Bing) search vendors together to compete with Google which has been maintaining a 2 to 1 share over both of them combined fairly consistently.

If you haven’t used Bing, I do recommend trying it. It was a vast improvement over their previous attempt, results appear to be better and the display/interface is much improved.

Its about time someone finally stepped up to the plate to challenge Google. I fully expect Google to react well and roll with the news just fine. But it will be interesting to see how the industry reacts and how the ad sales pick up for Yahoo/Bing. At the end of the day I’ll always say it is about the results, so if they want to break into Google’s share over the long term it will take more than a marketing blitz, but at least they’ve made a change. It was time to adapt or die.

Financial Times editor Lionel Barber told a UK audience this week that almost every news organization will charge for content in some way in the next year, as reported by PR Week. My question, then, becomes what value will news organizations provide that will engage readers to pay. That model was tried and failed a decade ago by many mainstream media. What will be different this time?

Traditional media have evolved and until recently thrived as the gatherers of information. Along the way, they became the agenda setters for discussion on issues with tremendous clout and must-read/see/hear status. With the explosion of online media and the ease of sharing and monitoring opinions (and the accompanying cultural shift that has people seeking this information online first), we don’t need media to gather as much; and “I can set my own agenda.” Think about it. I can subscribe to Web sites, blogs, Twitter accounts, and Facebook pages that give me only political news with my particular ideology, or only sports news that supports my favorite teams. I can ignore the rest. And frankly, there’s something satisfying in doing so for many who feel that the traditional media have abused that power in setting agendas consistent with their own personal views; not necessarily representing objectivity or the sentiment of the readers.

At the same time, the Wall Street Journal has a very successful pay-for-online content model, specifically because it provides content that often isn’t available anywhere else and goes deeper than traditional media typically report. Take note traditional media: To be worthy of my online dollar, you’ll have to do the same and offer something I can’t find elsewhere online. At a time when traditional media are shrinking their news staffs and relying on more canned wire stories, while expanding beats that allow less depth on original content, it’s difficult to see them re-inventing themselves in that meaningful way.

What do you think?

bay.news.9.fl.antibully.baynews9

Google has made a major update to the way users can refine their searches.  It is now very easy to refine or filter out result that meet specific criteria.  Want to see only reviews from the past 24 hours?  No problem.

What opportunities does this change provide for SEO and marketing your website?  First, let’s understand how it works.

Here is where one can access this feature.  Do a Google search and on the results page click on “Show Options” just below the Google icon on the left.

The filter options are on the left side.  Just try them out to see how they effect your search results.

Dig deeper visually into the results using the Wonder wheel.

SEO Opportunities
After playing around with the filter you can see how useful this can be in getting more relevant results for the user.  It is also clear that different sites rank for the different filters.  It is probably rare to impossible for a single site to rank highly for each filter.  How can you optimize for all these different options?

The first step is simple.  For a given keyword, look at what is highly ranked for each filter.  Are there opportunities to create content that can be optimized for that filter?  The video filter is pretty straight forward.  Create a video with keywords in the title and desription at the minimum.  It has a good chance at high rankings.

Reviews
The “review” filter provides an opportunity to see what reviews rank highly.  See if it is possible to direct any customers to these sites to place reviews.  If your site provides reviews, there is a format to encode the review data to ensure the results can be displayed in a Google search result.  This is an easy way to gain visibility by updating your code.  Here are details that explain how to mark up structured data.

As you can see there are many ways to optimize for these filters.  Start working on this now, as it adds a whole additional dimension to optimizing a site.  It is only a matter of time before the average search engine user starts using this new feature.  In 2007 the average search query was only three words, now it is up to 4 words.  Users are becoming more sophisticated.  It is our job to stay ahead of the game.

Google video showing how to use the new “Options filter”

For this blog entry I thought I’d share an example of how powerful amateur videos and information on the internet can be; acting in a similar way that word of mouth recommendations and marketing work. This example focuses on the shaving industry and Gillette in particular, now owned by Procter & Gamble.

Razors, blades, and the marketing for them have changed quite a bit over the past 50 years. You’ve seen the ads. Nowadays the TV spots will often feature some guy looking in a mirror while shaving in a towel, with perfect abs and pecs, zero body hair, perfect shaving cream application that looks like rubber, along with a scantily clad bimbo gawking and giggling in the background. During Gillette’s previous “Mach” era, they would also feature jets whizzing by on screen… what a huge selling point, and oh, how masculine! Their latest product is the “Fusion” razor, which uses five blade cartridges and also comes in a battery powered version. Do you really need 5+ blades and more importantly, why would you ever need a safety razor to be electric? The advertisements have changed with the “Fusion” line but remain just as corny. They now try to feature this fusion technology as something that’s really advanced and high-tech. More recently, they even tried to target video gamers but in my opinion, failed to make a connection. Saturday Night Live mocked the then fictitious 3 bladed razor in 1975, with the “Triple-Trac” skit featuring Al Franken as a caveman searching for a “close shave.” It was only 23 years later, in 1998, that Gillette first introduced the “Mach 3”. It certainly wasn’t the last time the company was ridiculed either. SNL also did a “Platinum Mach 14” commercial featuring John Goodman in 2000 and The Onion published a five blade article (warning – excessive profanity) in 2004, which was of course 2 years before the “Fusion” was introduced.

I didn’t check to see what agency or agencies work with Gillette but I’ve never been impressed with their media campaigns. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I detest them. However, for several years I actually did use a Gillette “Mach 3” razor. In case you are unaware, the company uses a very brilliant freebie marketing campaign. By purchasing information and acting just like a pusher, Gillette targets and hooks young males around the time of their 18th birthday by sending a free razor in the mail. I received one around this time and started using it on a regular basis, previously only using an electric razor if I remember correctly. It seemed pretty good at the time, but when I ran out of blades and went to the store to get some more, it hit me; the price, that is. I quickly realized that I had been duped but on the other hand, what other options were there? Schick sells comparable products but their price point is very similar to Gillette’s. Then there are a few generic, single-blade razors that just seemed cheap and, of course, the Bic disposable razors, which also seem to lack in quality. Electric razors are easy to use, but it’s just not the same as a “wet shave.” At the time, I just decided to suck it up and pay for the “Mach 3” refills and did this for at least a few years.

A few years ago, when I was still in college, I was browsing digg.com and I happened upon a video that eventually changed the way I shave. The video itself features a middle-aged guy and it’s far from professional, yet very informative. It revealed a method of shaving that I was mostly unaware of – shaving with a traditional, double-edged (single blade) safety razor – the way your grandfather probably used to shave. That’s right: heavy metal razors with a chrome finish, badger or boar hair brushes, and shaving cream in a tube or bar soap form… I can just hear Tim Allen’s grunts of approval à la Home Improvement. These single-blade double-edged razors aren’t manufactured in the US anymore, and you aren’t going to find any of the necessary supplies for this method at your everyday retail store. However, the razors are still made in other countries and you can find some related products at higher end stores such as Nordstrom , Crabtree & Evelyn, etc., possibly at a barber shop, or through the internet. One of the most popular brands is Merkur of Germany (subsidiary of DOVO Solingen), which is the brand I chose to go with – recommended for beginners. Other brands include Edwin Jagger (UK), Parker, Boots (UK), and MÜHLE (German) among others. Because these traditional razors are so durable, you can also buy used razors such as Gillette and Schick products from the 40s, 50s, or 60s. With a little cleaning and some new blades, they’re as good as new. New blades are manufactured by Merkur, Derby (Turkey), Feather (Japan), Persona (Israel), 7 a.m. (Bangladesh), Astra (Czech), Dorco (Korea), and the list goes on. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, shaving with a traditional double-edged safety razor is more popular in other countries.

Concerned with Safety?

When it comes to safety, yes, you have to be a little more careful when shaving with a traditional razor but after using one for a couple of years now, I’d claim that there really isn’t that much of a difference compared to the modern products that Gillette and Schick are producing. As long as you take things a little slower and get some practice in, you’ll be fine. These are nothing like a straight edge (carry in your boot) razor – yet, when searching for information on classic shaving methods, people also seem to enjoy those as well.

What’s the advantage?

• Cost: One of the primary reasons I chose to switch was the cost. The traditional products at the retailers and probably the barber shops are usually overpriced and are targeted at more upper-class businessmen types. On the internet though, you can find great products at reasonable prices – I prefer Amazon.com. Initially, a double-edged razor and the necessary accessories will seem expensive. A good basic Merkur razor will set you back about $40 – $50. If you don’t want to use canned shaving cream, you also need a brush (badger hair is preferred), which start around $30, along with some quality shaving cream – $10 – $15, and a mug to mix up a lather. It’s only over time that you’ll mostly likely be able to save some money, and it all comes down to the blades. If you use Gillette’s latest and so-called greatest product, the “Fusion”, 8 refill cartridges will cost around $20+. Compare that to the Merkur blades that I use, which I can usually find on Amacon.com for around $6 for a pack of 10. Gillette might make claims about the “Fusion” blades lasting longer but I’d be very skeptical. I change the blade in my razor once a week.
• Quality: The other primary reason to switch is the quality of the shave itself. With normal cartridge razors you tend to just hack away the hair really fast. The razors are lightweight, and you end up with something that more often than not, is far less than ideal. With a traditional double-edged safety razor, you’re forced to slow things down a bit, make some preparations, pay attention to the direction that the hair grows, make at least one pass, and take the proper aftercare steps. The weight of one of these razors will also typically be much heavier so instead of pressing down on your face, you allow the razor itself to apply the appropriate pressure. The end result is a shave that leaves much less irritation, and just altogether feels much more satisfying. There was at least one weekend in college where I returned home only to realize that I had forgotten my shaving equipment. Going back to a flimsy plastic Mach “3” was like a joke.
• Environment: I’m not an environment advocate. I’m not really against the people that are because I enjoy nature just as much as the next person, but at the same time, you’d never see me marching down the street or chaining myself to a tree. That being said, cartridge blades use plastic and have to be thrown away whereas a single double-edged blade is just metal and can be recycled. In addition, traditional shaving cream in a tube or in bar form produce less waste and are simply more natural compared to the canned, chemical filled aerosol shaving creams that most people use.

The amazing thing is that this classic style of shaving has actually been making a bit of a comeback, thanks mostly to the internet. As I mentioned above, I learned about this method by browsing digg and finding mantic59’s YouTube channel. After researching the topic a bit more, before making a decision to try it, I came across sites such as Badger & Blade, a decent-sized community with a message board that contains over 1 million posts. There have also been popular articles on the topic such as How to get that perfect shave on MSNBC, and How To Shave Like Your Grandpa on The Art of Manliness – an article that also landed on digg. The really intriguing thing is that a company isn’t behind the communities or articles. It’s just a more obscure topic that once people learn more about, they’re compelled to try it themselves and tell others. The razor and blade manufacturers seem to have little internet presence, so this is really a case of word of mouth information spreading successfully. Many companies would find this internet community to be highly desirable.

Gillette’s ad agency can try all it wants to try to convince me that adding just one more blade is somehow going to change everything. Silly gizmos like the “Fusion Power” just make me shake my head and laugh. To me, this type of thing is on par with those crazy HD sunglasses infomercials. Claim all you want, you’re not going to change my mind. There is a lot of information here and no, the switch to a double-edged razor it wasn’t necessarily a life-changing moment but it would be something that could make a company like Gillette think twice about its current strategies.