You Know Who

George Parker has a few words to say about Yahoo!'s attempts to come back from the dead. Bill Green has a few as well. (Bill also weighs in on AOL's similar attempt.)

I'm probably not the fairest judge since I was an "early adopter" of Google back in the 90s. I simply liked the clean interface. It was a search engine and that's all I wanted. Now it's so much more, but it's still a great search engine. They quietly added the whole "home portal" bells and whistles with iGoogle, but you can still click on "Classic Home" to get that look that takes you back to a simple search.

AOL? How do they shake the whole "Grandma's on-ramp to the Information Superhighway" image they've dug for themselves? I know two people who use AOL, and they are on dial-up. Even the little yellow man has been co-opted by Google.

Yahoo!? Wow. Just as tough. That exclamation point was so "crazy wild" back in dotcom '96. So irreverent, so "nutty." Now? So silly. So stupid. You could make the case that the name Google is just as dumb, but it's now a verb. (Yahoo! tried to duplicate that success with their failed campaign, "Do you Yahoo!?") Go to Yahoo! now and they're begging you with pop-ups to add your favorites to the site. The page has a pleading, desperate feel, like any local newspaper's website or the countless identical sites of local TV stations. "We want to be your place to find cars, jobs, weather, news, casual hookups, horoscopes, lottery numbers, email, travel, music." They want to be your homepage, the first place you see when you fire up your machine. That's a lot to ask. Sure, Yahoo!'s Flickr is good, but other than that, I've got no reason to be there.

Yahoo! might pick off some old AOL customers, and maybe some old Yahoo! devotees will try out AOL, but most of us have decided what we like at this point, and any "rebrand" is easily detected for what it is; a desperate attempt to be relevant again. Bing? I'm not even interested. MSN was never a player in this game. "Try it! It's great!" people tell me. No. I like what I use. What's that you say? They have a cool background image that changes? Well then, since you put it that way!

Is Google a monopoly? Pretty much. But I'm not jumping to a competitor in the interest of thumbing my nose and playing the rebel. Google was the new kid long ago, and I like how they've grown. Smart moves, savvy business and a product that delivers a lot for nothing.

And rather than painstakingly creating the silly logo at top in P-shop, I just went to this easy site.

What Does Obama Want?

Depends who you ask.




More alarming, what should Obama do?



Oh, this is getting interesting. Let's let Magic Google finish this statement:



It's worse than you thought, people.

Stinging Bing

I'd read nothing but positive reviews for Bing, so I decided to conduct a little test of the Microsoft search engine. A self-serving test, but a test nonetheless.

Yesterday I wrote a post called Swiss Army Airstream. I typed that phrase, without quotes, into Google. The post I wrote yesterday is the third search result for the phrase. Type the same phrase into Bing, and I stopped trying to find my post after ten pages of search results.

Now, I understand that Google might be indexing my blog faster than Bing since Where's My Jetpack? is hosted on Google's Blogger platform, and I also get that Bing might want to take their time indexing Google hosted results, much the way Microsoft's spellcheckers pretended not to know what the word "Google" was for the longest time. This isn't unbiased science, but I have proven, at least for myself, that there's no need to switch from a good thing to a questionable thing.

Google: The Magic 8-Ball Ouija Board Palm Reader

And note the not-so-surprising fact that "if a girl likes you" was asked 13 million times, while "if a guy likes you" only 1 million times. Draw your own conclusions. I'm sure Chris Rock could riff on this.

Good News, Watchmakers: 239 Million People Are Asking This Question

I guess they don't trust the clocks on their computers.

Wonder No More!

People expect a lot out of their Google. (Click the image to read it better.)

America is Tired of Watching the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving

Google's query suggestion tool is creepy and accurate, like some sort of mind-reader. Or I just asked the obvious question that everyone else is asking.That's exactly what I wanted to know, and I guess it works by how many searches a particular query gets, meaning this question is more popular than "Why does Detroit suck? or "Why does Detroit even have a football team?" or "Why does Detroit bother to make cars anymore?" all of which aren't even offered as options.

Sadly, "Where's My Jetpack?" requires I get all the way to the "j" in jetpack before Google gives me any love.

Is Yoohoo Really Worth $44 Billion?

Does anyone even drink this stuff anymore?

What?

Yahoo?

Oh.

Well, does anyone even use that search engine anymore?

The "Why the Hell?" Angle

Over at Make the Logo Bigger, one of the writers of the new Ask.com giant musical production ads, John Reid, says, "The spots are all about getting a super-rich experience no matter how obscure the thing you're searching for is. Hopefully, that explains the "why the hell?" question."

So we get Chicks with Swords and Kato Kaelin. Obscure, sure, but how effective? Are people now searching at Ask.com and abandoning Google? And go ahead and do an image search for "Chicks with Swords" over at Ask.com and see if you find the "experience" to be "super-rich."

"Why the hell" works when you're selling burgers, and I personally enjoy the Western Whopper moustache ads that CP+B has been putting out. I am also one of the few who really liked Peter Stormare as the evil German doctor unpimping rides for VW. But you can't do "why the hell" for everything. And when you're the distant 5th place search engine, just ahead of the "other" category, you simply can't do "why the hell" and expect people to jump brands, especially when one of those brands has such a huge share of searchers and rolls out free, useful products every week.

A few months ago, Ask.com tried some stuff in the UK that backfired, pretending to get all revolutionary, guerilla and underground, complete with red berets. The backlash happened because, in the words of one disappointed dupe, "I thought this may be an informative Web site about how information is used on the Internet. Instead I discover it's just a cheap ploy for an inferior search engine."

But I think that UK campaign went for the right angle: Google rules the world and people should revolt. CP+B needs to scare the public. Make them think Google is installing cameras in their bedrooms and watching their credit cards. Make them think Google is holding on to records of every search ever performed and waiting for the right time to use the information against them. Portray Google as jackbooted thugs disguised as flower children. Hell, turn them into evil alien personal information Nazis out to rule the universe.

You can't do that hip wink and a nudge stuff for every product and service you work for, CP+B. Your client is in 5th place and you're giving us Kato Kaelin? Come on, I know you people are smarter than this.

Man Searches for Xena Porn with Success

CP+B have to work for Ask.com, the struggling search engine in a very distant 5th place to Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL, just ahead of the "other" category. In typical CP+B fashion, they do the work big, weird, and self-aware, reaching for the porn image searcher market (the man searches for "chicks with swords") in this over-the-top, grandiose Broadway Spectacular.

Keep doing show tunes and you're gonna stay in 5th, Ask. Might wanna bring back Jeeves soon.

Watch at your own risk.



Note to anonymous commenter (whose comment was deleted) who wrote, "Not sure how women wearing clothes while holding swords is equivalent to porn...I guess some people have nothing better to do then be strangely offended by nothing at all."

No one is offended by the "porn," which is merely suggested and not actual. (Do I need to tell you what a "sword" is? Here you go. See also the Wayne's World entry on Wikipedia. Look for the word "Schwing!") The "offense" is the spot itself. I just happen to hate musicals. I also hate commercials that rely on giant productions to sell services no one uses. Sorry. And I'll bet you worked on the spot or you work at Ask.com. Please read the disclaimer at the bottom of this blog.