Archive for June, 2009
Amazon Cuts Rhode Island, Hawaii Affiliates; Is California Next?
We’ve been tracking the affiliate tax debacle involving Amazon and the state of North Carolina. Now, affiliates in more states are being affected.
Associates in Rhode Island and Hawaii are receiving emails notifying them of the cancellation of their affiliate accounts. Rhode Island passed a bill making affiliates consist of a physical location for web retailers, which forces them to pay sales tax in the state. Hawaii is considering a similar bill.
Blue Nile, a diamond company has also shut down its program to Rhode Island residents.
On the horizon is the state of California, another state considering an affililate tax bill, sometimes referred to as affiliate nexus.
New York was the first state to pass such a bill, which went into effect last summer. 200 affiliate programs were canceled for New York residents as a result.
Penny Baldwin to Yahoo!; David Ebersman Named CFO of Facebook
This week, there are a couple of executive hirings in Silion Valley related to the search and social networking industries. First up, Penny Baldwin has been tapped as senior vice president, global integrated marketing and brand management for Yahoo! Is there any room left on her business card? That’s quite a long title!
Previously, Baldwin served as Managing Partner of Young & Rubicam Brands, Y&R Advertising and Wunderman Direct Marketing.
“One of Yahoo!’s greatest assets is its brand,” said Yahoo!’s chief marketing officer, Elisa Steele. “Our integrated, global approach is critical to our success and we have a deep business commitment to fulfill our promise to our users, customers and partners. Penny is uniquely qualified to lead the effort and her leadership, experiences, knowledge and skills are excellent additions to the Yahoo! marketing team.”
Meanwhile, Facebook has selected David Ebersman as the social network’s new chief financial officer. Ebersman was formerly the vice president and chief financial officer at Genentech.
“We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates,” said Mark Zuckerberg. “We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech’s CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook.”
What do you think of these hirings? Let us know by leaving a comment.
Enter the Search Engine Watch Awards by July 17, 2009
You only have a couple of weeks left to submit an entry to this year’s Search Engine Watch Awards. The deadline is July 17, 2009.
The objective of the SEW Awards is to recognize excellence, as well as inspire innovation and encourage new ideas in search marketing. The SEW Awards will honor 14 outstanding search marketers, search engines and technology providers, as judged by a panel of industry experts and the Search Engine Watch editorial staff.
The categories are:
* Search Engine with Most Relevant Results
* Most Innovative New Search Engine
* Best Search Engine Ad Platform
* Technology Platform Search Marketers Can’t Live Without
* Best SEM Technology Platform for SMBs
* Best Social Media Platform for Marketers
* Best Web Analytics Platform
* Most Innovative Use of Search Engine Optimization
* Most Innovative Paid Search Campaign
* Best Social Media Marketing Campaign
* Best Business-to-Business Search Marketing Campaign
* Best Use of Local Search
* Best Integration of Search with Other Media
* Most Effective Use of Web Analytics
And who are the judges? They are:
* Chris Boggs, Director, SEO, Rosetta
* Jessica Bowman, SEO Strategist and in-house SEO Expert, SEMinhouse.com
* Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting
* PJ Fusco, Natural Search Director, Netconcepts
* Bill Hunt, President, Back Azimuth Consulting
* Mark Jackson, SEW Expert & President/CEO, VIZION Interactive
* Ron Jones, President/CEO, Symetri Internet Marketing
* Cindy Krum, Chief Executive Officer, Rank-Mobile, LLC
* Sage Lewis, President, SageRock.com
* Melissa Mackey, Online Marketing Manager, Fluency Media
* John Marshall, SES Advisory Board & CTO, Market Motive
* Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank Online Marketing
* David Szetela, CEO, Clix Marketing
* Brian Ussery, Director of SEO, Search Discovery
* Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster
By the way, in case you think I’m sucking up to the judges by listing their names, my firm can’t enter because SES is one of our clients. This wasn’t in the rules a year ago, but now that it has, I am free to comment on the process and the outcome.
Entrants may submit nominations for multiple categories, but each submission must focus on the four key areas of consideration:
1. Overall approach and category relevance
2. Innovation in methodology and execution
3. Excellence in tactical execution
4. Achieving success goals
Submissions will be accepted through July 17, 2009. There is an application fee of $145 per entry. Up to four award finalists will be determined for each category. Finalists will be notified by July 27, 2009, and will receive 1-day passes (limit 3) to the SES San Jose sessions and Orion panels on the day the winner in their category is announced. Winners will be announced during Search Engine Strategies San Jose, August 10-14, 2009.
Submitting companies will be recognized at the event, as well as in the SES Magazine and on Search Engine Watch. I also plan to interview as many winners as possible for SESConferenceExpo’s Channel on YouTube.
Oh, there is one other thing you should know about the Search Engine Watch Awards. The winner of the 2000 SEW Award in the “Outstanding Search Service” category was a little known start-up named Google. And Google was also the winner in the “Most Webmaster Friendly” category, as well.
Not bad for a company that had just announced a $25 million round from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins a year earlier. Where are they now, I wonder?
AOL Canada Relaunches Homepage, Makes You Thirsty for Pepsi
AOL Canada has relaunched their homepage and in case you couldn’t tell, Pepsi has bought some advertising (Click on image to enlarge):
The relaunch is based on the update of the AOL.com homepage in the U.S last fall. That relaunch has been good to AOL, with increases of 23% in unique visitors, 34% in total page views and 61% in total minutes consumed year over year, according to comScore’s Media Matrix for May 2009.
“The launch of the new AOL Canada portal follows the tremendous successes we’ve experienced in both the U.S. and the UK, enabling exciting new opportunities for the Canadian market,” said Edward Kwan, Senior Director of AOL Canada. “In terms of advertising, Platform-A Canada will now have the capability to expand its reach across more relevant and media-rich content and channels.”
The new AOL.ca features the ability to check mail from a variety of providers (AOL, GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail) as well as the opportunity to update social networks including Facebook, Twitter, AOL-owned Bebo, and MySpace. AOL’s popular instant messaging client, AIM, is also included.
“With today’s Internet ever-expanding and consumers engaging in multiple social networking platforms, it is essential that their experience on the Web is both personalized and integrated,” said Kwan.
Additional AOL.ca features include:
- Customized backgrounds with multiple new designs from which to choose;
- Ability to add any customized links to the homepage so users can more easily access their most frequently visited sites;
- Users can drag and drop to reorder channel navigation to suit personal preferences;
- Users can add RSS feeds and personalized categories to get content from their preferred external sites.
What do you think of the new AOL.ca? Share your first impressions in the comments below.
CareerBuilder Taps Bing API for New Candidate Search Tool
At the Society for Human Resource Management Conference, CareerBuilder announced a new recruiting tool built with the Bing API. It’s called Applicant Explorer and it uses the API to integrate online results such as social networking sites, blogs, and corporate websites with CareerBuilder’s results.
“One of our key goals with Bing is to simplify search and make it easier for people to find what they are looking for online; searching for the ideal job candidate is no exception,” said Alessandro Catorcini, senior program manager, Bing. “By combining Bing functionality with the extensive CareerBuilder database, Applicant Explorer helps recruiters and employers customize their search criteria and dynamically sort through and display hundreds of data sources in one easy to use interface, cutting the manual search time substantially.”
The idea was to streamline the candidate search process for human resources professionals. Instead of sifting through CareerBuilder results and then conducting the same search on a separate search engine, now recruiters can do it all in one place.
“With so many employers already utilizing the Internet to research candidates, Applicant Explorer was created to help employers do that necessary research in the most efficient and simple way possible - helping them go beyond the resume,” said Greg Brass, director of profile search at CareerBuilder. “In addition, job seekers can benefit from the clearer picture employers can gather of their qualifications and background.”
Applicant Explorer is free for those using CareerBuilder’s resume database.
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