Google or Yahoo for Advertising?
Google or Yahoo for small-biz advertising? Who prepares better business plans: men or women? Plus, an organizational approach with competitive advantages, and more.
Google vs. Yahoo for Small-Business Advertisers: A Customer of Both Says It's No Contest
Google (GOOG) wins hands down, says Fred Thacher, president of uSalus, a seller of specialized wool bedding. The first time he specified Google keywords for ads, within hours of posting he received a call from a Google rep, who advised him that he likely wasn't making the best choices. Over a period of several days, says Thacher, the rep spent four to five hours guiding him through a realignment of his ads.
In contrast, he says, simply composing ads for Yahoo! (YHOO) is an adventure. "The difficulty arises when there are several keywords and the customer has to write copy and insert the correct landing page for each ad. Yahoo cuts the customer off after only 20 minutes and all your work is lost. How bad is that!"
Moreover, all keyword ads need to be approved by Yahoo, which is fine by Thacher, to reduce clutter and spam. "The problem arises when the keyword buyer composes an ad for use and the ad is submitted for review and is rejected," he says. Trying to correct the situation "is tough to do even by a skilled user. I know because I have finally, out of desperation, asked my paid Web designer to do some of it for me. He reports back the same problems."
What are your experiences with the two kingpins of online advertising and searches? Post your comments with this column.
Who Prepares Better Business Plans, Men or Women?
A new study based on four years of data from men and women in a training program for microenterprises finds that they come out the same in quality scores. "However, women scored significantly better on the presentation of their plan to judges," conclude the study's authors, Ronald G. Cook, Paul Belliveau, and Christine Lentz of Rider University, in a paper presented at a recent meeting of the Small Business Institute.
If You're Trying to Make Sense Out of the Internet Economy, and the Increasing Chaos of the World Economy, a New Book May Help
The Starfish and the Spider (Portfolio, 2006) says it all in its subtitle: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. The authors, Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, use a highly entertaining anecdotal approach to explain why flat organizations—everything from the Apache Indian tribe to Skype to Al Qaeda—are the equivalent of starfish (and the opposite of spiders) in that cutting off appendages just stimulates the organization to restore itself stronger than it was before.
It's not all or nothing—the authors see eBay (EBAY) and Apple (AAPL) as examples of hybrid organizations, which apply the best of the starfish approach within traditional organizations. For the future, the authors predict more of the same, meaning that smaller businesses with strong networks, clear messages, and naturally flat organizations will retain important competitive advantages going forward. As they observe at one point, "When you give people freedom, you get chaos, but you also get incredible creativity." This is a thought-provoker.
Update: A Business Owner Presses on Against the Tide
A couple of years back, I wrote about an entrepreneur trying to fight against the outsourcing of American jobs by convincing companies to hire American tech contractors at rates not much above those of Indian and other Asian workers (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/22/04, "U.S. Programmers: Bargains Go Begging"). That business concept continues to be a struggle, but Mark Jennings says that, since August, he has sensed a change among prospective customers.
They are increasingly sensitive, he says, to "the wage inflation and delivery methods" of outsourcing firms that he says are "starting to grind on domestic staffs." He now has a pilot project going that has grown to four American consultants, which he hopes signals a wider change in attitudes, and actions.
Google (GOOG) wins hands down, says Fred Thacher, president of uSalus, a seller of specialized wool bedding. The first time he specified Google keywords for ads, within hours of posting he received a call from a Google rep, who advised him that he likely wasn't making the best choices. Over a period of several days, says Thacher, the rep spent four to five hours guiding him through a realignment of his ads.
In contrast, he says, simply composing ads for Yahoo! (YHOO) is an adventure. "The difficulty arises when there are several keywords and the customer has to write copy and insert the correct landing page for each ad. Yahoo cuts the customer off after only 20 minutes and all your work is lost. How bad is that!"
Moreover, all keyword ads need to be approved by Yahoo, which is fine by Thacher, to reduce clutter and spam. "The problem arises when the keyword buyer composes an ad for use and the ad is submitted for review and is rejected," he says. Trying to correct the situation "is tough to do even by a skilled user. I know because I have finally, out of desperation, asked my paid Web designer to do some of it for me. He reports back the same problems."
What are your experiences with the two kingpins of online advertising and searches? Post your comments with this column.
Who Prepares Better Business Plans, Men or Women?
A new study based on four years of data from men and women in a training program for microenterprises finds that they come out the same in quality scores. "However, women scored significantly better on the presentation of their plan to judges," conclude the study's authors, Ronald G. Cook, Paul Belliveau, and Christine Lentz of Rider University, in a paper presented at a recent meeting of the Small Business Institute.
If You're Trying to Make Sense Out of the Internet Economy, and the Increasing Chaos of the World Economy, a New Book May Help
The Starfish and the Spider (Portfolio, 2006) says it all in its subtitle: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. The authors, Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, use a highly entertaining anecdotal approach to explain why flat organizations—everything from the Apache Indian tribe to Skype to Al Qaeda—are the equivalent of starfish (and the opposite of spiders) in that cutting off appendages just stimulates the organization to restore itself stronger than it was before.
It's not all or nothing—the authors see eBay (EBAY) and Apple (AAPL) as examples of hybrid organizations, which apply the best of the starfish approach within traditional organizations. For the future, the authors predict more of the same, meaning that smaller businesses with strong networks, clear messages, and naturally flat organizations will retain important competitive advantages going forward. As they observe at one point, "When you give people freedom, you get chaos, but you also get incredible creativity." This is a thought-provoker.
Update: A Business Owner Presses on Against the Tide
A couple of years back, I wrote about an entrepreneur trying to fight against the outsourcing of American jobs by convincing companies to hire American tech contractors at rates not much above those of Indian and other Asian workers (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/22/04, "U.S. Programmers: Bargains Go Begging"). That business concept continues to be a struggle, but Mark Jennings says that, since August, he has sensed a change among prospective customers.
They are increasingly sensitive, he says, to "the wage inflation and delivery methods" of outsourcing firms that he says are "starting to grind on domestic staffs." He now has a pilot project going that has grown to four American consultants, which he hopes signals a wider change in attitudes, and actions.
source : http://www.businessweek.com/
1 comments:
nice info
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