The shutting down of this AdSense product has likely come at the request of the web spam team who fight daily to remove websites from their index that are of low value, but also from the industry who don’t like Google double dipping. Typically the benefit to users visiting any Adsense domains was close to zero but it also provided a strong commercial incentive for people to register typo domains and incentivize typosquatting domains.

This could certainly be a large step towards cleaning up the image of the domain parking industry as it shifts away from encouraging clicks to parked domains that add no value to working to develop the domains into lead generation and affiliate channels. There are a number of domain parking providers that run wonderful networks that help create content, provide analytics and generally help you build some value into your domains.  So it’s not the end of the world but there will be a number of unhappy domain owners that will have to start looking for a decent provide, but it will be golden days for domain parking platforms.

The announcement of shutting down its AdSense for Domain platform has potentially overnight destroyed a number of very profitable business models as I know a number of people who make great revenue from a handful of niche domains. But it will be interesting to see how this change will impact Google’s income stream over the next 6 months as people abandon it’s platform before it’s closed on June 27. It is also possible that a number of people might leave the domain parking industry so there could be a flood of domains that will start hitting the market over the next few months.

Based on this change I expect there is a significant Google algorithm change on the horizon that will potentially wipe out a number of these  sites, so Google wanted to get out while it was ahead. So stay tuned there is something on the horizon that pushed Google to respond after all these years of easy money.

Google is also being very fast in how quickly they started shutting down their parking program, with just a matter of a less than 2 months. They are also careful not to suggest any possible domain parking providers, they just advise people to Google “park my domains”. It’s a very interesting and lazy way to shut down a marketing platform and then just suggest people Google a certain phrase if they want to find a new parking provider. The official Google guide to migrating your domains away is here.

Doing a quick search across a few tools, currently there is no traffic around “park my domains” according to Google Trends, this is likely to change very quickly, and there is only 210 searches a month for that term as of today. As you can see from the screenshot below there is currently not that many specialist websites setup to capture that traffic but expect this to change rapidly.

Park My Domains

Google has tried to cut its ties with an industry it helped build and reward, but it will be an interesting few months on the AdSense support forums as domainers lash out that Google has cut off their revenue stream.  It is now a bigger incentive to build out domains into real businesses but is everyone ready for the sheer amount of work that is actually required?

For a number of people who did well out of AdSense for Domains it’s going to be interesting change to revenue streams as previously they could just buy niche domains park them with Google and operate on razor-thin margins across a massive portfolio of domains. This is a very interest move indeed. You can read more details on the Google help page.

In a move that might result in marketers having kittens and jumping from Rooftops has Google gone too far? In a sample query run today in a Chome “incognito” window I noticed that the results were a little different. There was 3 organic results and 7 Google places results. That’s right only 10 results with 30% being organic…

Update: I’ve seen it happen again this time with 6 places and 6 organic results.

6 Google Places and 6 Organic Results

Has Facebook started the process of rolling out an invite only program for a new type of ad that has a static “like” button similar to websites and no other ads showing at the same time.

“Over the next few months, Facebook will be archiving all groups created using the old groups format. When this group is archived, its wall posts, photos and discussion threads will move to the New groups format, but group members will need to be re-added.”

The point of concern is the part around group members will need to be re-added… why is Facebook making this so hard for those who have built up groups?

It seems that Pinterest is expanding their platform aggressively with partners like Etsy and offering price tags on some shared items, and is already one of the top 10 social networking sites according to VentureBeat attracting 11 million unique visitors in December.

It seems after a bit of testing back in September 2011, Amazon has finally started to roll out it’s refreshed interface started with Amazon Associates. You can see this new design if you are logged into your associates account but if you open a new chrome Incognito window you see the same old version.

I do really like the new look as it’s a welcome refresh and certainly seems to be designed to be used on touch screen devices and has been the first major change in a long term so should be welcomed by most of their users.

Google now shows at the bottom of the search result a message that these results include the word “store”. Show results that include only “shops”. It’s interesting that this same inclusion doesn’t happen if you search for “stores” or “store”, it only happens when you search for “shops”. This could be that Google is still struggling to link “Store” to the multiple Synonyms for “store” that could include: abundance, accumulation, backlog, cache, fount, fountain, fund, hoard, inventory, lode, lot, mine, nest egg, plenty, plethora, provision, quantity, reserve, reservoir, savings, spring, stock, stockpile, treasure, wares, wealth, well.

So Google is able to match a narrow synonym but not yet a broad synonym such as “store”.

The background on the song is that Barbie Girl is an interesting viral marketing campaign to promote the consumption of Lamb. The music clip has accepted the challenge of taking a really annoying song and make it even more annoying.

I must admit that the campaign does what it is created for…being terrible enough not to be taking seriously of offend consumers and bad enough that people are willing to share and discuss the video on social media. Sam Kekovich is focused on expanding his “Chop Culture” and the play on the Australian abbreviation for Barbarque “Barbie”…so throw another rack on the barbie…

Has YouTube rolled out another interface update already?

The campaign is produced by McCann Digital Israel and is simply a brilliant use of cutting edge social media features but also something that is simple enough anyone that sees the campaign can understand the concept.  The background on the campaign seems to be that it was slightly re-worked to ensure that it was not overcomplicated but made simple enough that the idea works internationally. It also works because the message while fairly clear does not get in your way of following the idea, it only works because the campaign message is almost subliminal and it really works!

It’s really great to see some creative thinking of social issues and making them relevant to society by using social media and hopefully this campaign is expanded and potentially improved and copied around the world. The concept of showing how differently your life could be in parallel universe has been done fairly well but I want to see more on Adam than just 1 month, so hopefully the campaign is extended. You can check out Adam’s timeline here.

What does Adam’s timeline show?

• You can see how it can impact his choice in accommodation
• how he looks in the morning
• what he does on a night out in town
• how he enjoys going out
• how it impacts on his relationships
• what gets him through the work day
• how he socialises with friends on the court

Anti-drugs timeline

Good campaign concept for other issues

So the question is how can Facebook’s social reach via platforms such as timeline can be used to educate others about other social issues such as binge drinking, speeding and crime. There are plenty of other items that this campaign decided to drop such as checkins, video, friends updates and more there are plenty of options to emulate this campaign with slight changes to get your message across.

Sorry Neil, I know it can work well but seriously this is kinda creepy I haven’t been to your site since 6th November 2011… isn’t this keeping the re-targeting cookie a bit long?

Questions that concern me about 1Form

• My 1Form account has been shut down but 1Form kept my details for marketing purposes
• 1Form is using my details to cross promote services that don’t relate to my original engagement

Why this should concern you

• If you have ever used 1Form for rental tenancy applications they keep your details
• They are using rental tenants database for promoting their other businesses
• What else have they done with your personal details you entered on your application form

What is the relevance of Shopping to real estate?

You can see below 1Form is now starting to aggressively market their discount shopping portal via their main tenants portal.  The placement and call to action look sloppy and unprofessional and seems more of a desperate grab at affiliate revenue rather than offering complementary services to Tenants and Property managers such as landlord insurance.

While I strongly understand how business is looking to keep their business profitable and continue to grow to keep their investors happy but there has to be some logical link when considering a business expansion and for real estate I’m thinking discounted online shopping is a stretch.

There is a number of ways that 1Form could have expanded their business by focusing on their current customer base and just slightly adapting their product offering to fit their customers growing rental needs.  The could have involved real estate related products or services such as rental insurance, bond cleaning services, new broadband connections, mobile phone services and premium tenant applications for people with pets. All of these services and cross-promotions make sense and would generate a large amount of revenue for 1Form if they bothered to do it right.

It makes more sense to match the services to the same industry as it’s possible that support questions will arise and about their new discount shopping platform.  The other issue is that the spammy process of email promotion is more likely to hard any positive word of mouth the services might have generated and makes me cautious to ever use their service ever again. The main reason that 1Form would have launched the discount shopping site is their huge email marketing database and the sheer volume of daily visitors they are currently failing to monetise.

It would make business sense for 1Form to expand their services into related industries that have traditionally painful form applications such as credit cards or insurance.  Having a number of non-related businesses makes it harder for 1Form to focus their business direction but may also make it harder to split up it’s operations if they ever plan to exit or float the business.

Some things 1Form should consider include:

• Does 1From get economies of scale? What are the cost advantages in this expansion besides more resources needed?
• Does 1Form get a larger Customer base? Yes, it might expand the possible customer base but the branding of the shopping experience with 1Form will confuse customers. It’s not Apple or Amazon and even Google/Microsoft brand their side businesses differently.
• Will 1Form get distracted? It’s likely that internal resources could get distracted from the primary purpose of 1Form and drop the ball leaving it’s real estate partners in the lurch.

There is no relevance for 1From

Why not ask yourself what is the relevance to Real Estate applications platform offering it’s user a weekly shopping list for discounted goods they can buy online?

In what is an interesting development it seems that Google is perfecting it’s automation of data into useful Schema results for Hotel and Travel related search query. The search results are showing for a query for “Port Macquarie Hotels” and the website is not using Schema meta tags it is being done automatically by Google.