Writing your own content for your business website? Search Engine Guide has some great tips to keep in mind that will help with your marketing efforts. Remember, if you don’t provide the customer with the information they need and want when they come to your website, they’ll just go somewhere else. For more information on customer-centric design, check out Customer-Centric Sites and B2B Content – SEO vs. Customer-Centric Design.
Archives for September 2008
ANA cautions against Google, Yahoo deal
The WSJ is reporting on a letter, sent from the Association of National Advertisers to the Department of Justice, cautioning against the proposed deal between Google and Yahoo. The ANA is citing the usual suspects when objections to mergers, acquisitions and partnerships. The letter is short, so Ill post the pertinent half.
The letter, authorized by the ANA Board, notes that a Google-Yahoo partnership will control 90 percent of search advertising inventory and states ANA’s concerns that the partnership will likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search advertising.
It is the last line that really rings true to the heart of the ANA’s issue with the deal. The ANA is worried that Google and Yahoo will be able to raise prices on the large percentage of online advertising inventory they control. It is a serious issue for the association, who represents institutional advertisers and who has a board made up of power brokers
ANA’s board, made up of well-known marketing executives including Brian Perkins, Johnson & Johnson‘s vice president of corporate affairs; Stephen Quinn, chief marketing officer at Wal-Mart Stores Inc; and Betsy Lazar, executive director of media and advertising for General Motors Corp., approved the group’s move. ~ WJS
I’m not a large Google or Yahoo advertiser and so I don’t have a good grasp on the merits of this raised objection. Clearly, when customers of a service speak out against something like this, especially one as well organized and connected as the ANA, the DOJ is likely to listen intently. In truth, there is the case to be made that Yahoo is threatened by the possibility of going out of business if this deal is not made. This would surely hurt competition and concentrate control within Google more than a partnership does. Microsoft has made similar arguments against the deal that the ANA is making. Those pleas have been largely ignored in the media as the cries of a competitor in the online ad market.
Is Your Website SaaS(y)?
SaaS, which stands for Software as a Service, is software that is hosted, updated, and supported by a vendor and that software is usually accessed through the Internet (either through a website, or widget, etc.). When you’re considering adding services to your business website, you will probably run across SAAS vendors and it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages before you make a decision:
Advantages
- No software and hardware to maintain – The SaaS vendor provides all the support.
- Frees up internal support resources for other tasks.
- Ongoing fees mean you can quit using the system at any time.
- Usually get enterprise-level services for much lower costs.
- Often SaaS vendors have a large customer base to provide feedback, which can be beneficial for quality assurance.
- SaaS vendors are often able to roll out new features (and bug fixes) very quickly since the software is running on their systems.
Disadvantages
- No control over updates – The software will automatically be updated by the vendor, giving you little control over whether you want those updates.
- Harder to maintain change control – If you have other systems that interact with the SaaS product, updates and changes to it may cause problems when the changes are unexpected or unexplained.
- Little control over new features – While SaaS customers certainly have some input, you will have much less than software developed in-house. But about the same level of input over vendor software installed and running internally.
- Ongoing fees may be difficult to budget compared to one-time fees.
- No ownership of software – must continue investment with ongoing service fees.
- Lack of flexibility – You are at the mercy of the vendor. Jeremiah Owyang has a good article with more information and a good discussion – The Problem With SaaS – Lack of Flexibility.
If you use SaaS services, what has your experience been? Any advantages or disadvantages I missed? Please share in the comments below.
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