Chip Griffin: Pardon the Disruption

links for 2005-11-19

• P&G debuts measurement tool calculating PR’s value - PRWeek US
  (tags: PRmeasurement)

CustomScoop is Hiring!

We're going through a bit of a growth spurt over at CustomScoop and have a number of immediate job openings in our Concord, NH office.  It's an exciting time for the company with lots of fun projects on the horizon. 

Our five years of success in selling news monitoring services to medium to large businesses has provided us with the opportunity to grow rapidly.  Recently, we've received kudos from some of the bloggers I respect the most for new services we're beta testing to expand our roster of offerings (for example, here and here).

But we're not resting on our laurels.  Instead, we've decided to invest in ourselves and, as Emeril would say, "kick it up a notch."

If you or anyone you know wants to be part of that growth, visit our Careers page to learn more and share your resume.

links for 2005-11-17

• PaidContent.org: API's $2 Million Newspaper Thinktank
  The American Press Institute has launched a $2 million year-long research project trying to find new business models for newspapers
  (tags: Newspapers BusinessModels)

links for 2005-11-16

• MediaPost Publications - Pheedo Unveils RSS Analytics
  "IN A FURTHER SIGN OF momentum in the RSS advertising space, Pheedo, a blog and RSS ad network, today officially unveils its RSS analytics service."
  (tags: RSS Advertising)

How Will Google Use Analytics Data?

Matthew Hurst points out that Google's terms of service for its new Analytics service allows it to use the collected data for its own purposes.  Essentially, in exchange for free web visitor stats for your blog or web site, you agree to let them take advantage of that treasure drove of data being collected.

Seems like a fair trade to me.  And it isn't that much of a stretch to imagine it might be used in weighting search results in the future.

Of course, the flip side is that all of the algorithms that rely on link volume or site traffic (whether it is Google, Memeorandum, TailRank, PubSub, etc.) perpetuate the notion of the "favored few" web sites.  This isn't necessarily bad, as the vast majority of stuff out there has a hard time rising above the level of clutter.  But no doubt many will be legitimately concerned about the effect this has on the long tail and whether it will thin the tail and swell the head.

Looking at the Third Page of Search

Charlen Li explores an interesting concept: the third page of search.

I've been noodling around the idea of the "Third Page" of search (credit goes to Perry Evans from LocalMatters for prompting this train of thought). The first page of search is the query page (like www.google.com), the second page is the search results, and the third is a destination page on yet another search engine or aggregator that's been optimized for that query.

Essentially, the third page adds an extra click for the user in finding useful information, but the trade-off is that you potentially end up with better, more relevant information.  Certainly, the "third page" appears to be becoming more of a trend, particularly in high-volume search segments.

Jeremy Zawodny points out in a comment that "third pages" have long been a favorite of spammers and other less ethical folks.  But now they are becoming more mainstream and often add legitimate value.  If they aren't simply link farms and instead try to organize information in a more useful way for the consumer, they're a great idea.

links for 2005-11-10

• LibrarianInBlack: Search Engine Update by Gary Price—CLA Annual Conference
  (tags: Search Aggregation)
• TimesSelect Passes 270,000 Subscribers In 52 Days; Half Are Online-Only Subs
  (tags: PaidContent Subscriptions)

Bacon's Acquires TV Monitoring Firm

Bacon's acquisition trend continues, this time by picking up broadcast monitoring firm Multivision.  From the press release:

Bacon's Information, Inc., a provider of media research, distribution, monitoring and evaluation services for public relations, marketing and corporate communications professionals, today announced the acquisition of Multivision, Inc, a broadcast monitoring and media management company headquartered in Oakland, California.

The acquisition is the latest in a series of moves that seem to be part of Bacon's effort to consolidate the media monitoring industry and grow its suite of in-house offerings.

Hackers Profit from BusinessWire

The SEC has nailed an Estonian investment bank and a couple of hackers for sneaking into the Business Wire press release distribution system to find out which public companies would be making significant announcements in the near future.  They then bought stock or sold it short for a profit.

Since the start of this year, they netted nearly $8 million on the scam.  Business Wire points out that these hackers didn't get full access, apparently just were able to look at release times and headlines.  Of course, that's enough to trade on in many cases. 

This incident demonstrates one of the pitfalls of the increasingly online application driven business environment.  Anytime data is stored centrally -- for any service, with any company -- it presents a larger opportunity for hackers. 

That's not a criticism of BusinessWire or a knock on hosted applications generally.  Hey, CustomScoop is one, too, though we don't have the sort of information that most hackers could profit from.  It's just something to be aware of -- and a challenge for application providers to meet.

(via Paul Kedrosky)