Got to give it to the folks at Google. Not only do they have a sense of humor over there, but they know how to draw attention to the R&D efforts at Google Labs. Case in point: Google Goggles. I’m not saying I’m going to activate the feature (I’m way too composed to need such a thing), but I love the concept. Read all about it at the GMAIL BLOG.
As a marketing professional, I couldn’t be more thrilled at the abundance of metrics and analytics that the Internet makes available. Here’s a confession: I’ve always been addicted to statistics. Guess that’s what happens when one is exposed to the Baseball Encyclopedia at the age of six. So now I have a new outlet: website traffic tracking sites. There are bunch of them out th
ere– perhaps the best known (and the one I most often use) is Alexa. A subsidiary of Amazon.com, Alexa basically lets you view any site’s traffic statistics, ranking, and perhaps best of all, provides you with the ability to compare the traffic results of multiple sites. It also gives you comprehensive lists of the top sites in multiple categories. Check out the top 500 visited sites or drill down to an area as specific as the most popular online scientific publications. Some doubt the absolute reliability of these results, which is definitely a caveat, but for the pure volume of analytical data that it delivers, Alexa is truly a fountain of information. Actually, more like an ocean.
I’ve found myself on more than one occasion extolling the value of Google and Yahoo alerts as brand monitoring tools and have been somewhat astonished at how many people still don’t know about or use them.
It’s a reminder of the enormous amount of information resources that are out there, and that in many cases each of us is using an entirely different set of tools to obtain our news and info. President Bush was asked not long ago if he used Google and he replied, “One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps.” (watch interview). Translation: It’s pretty obvious W. does not regularly use Google because nobody says “the Google”. That’s as obvious a “tell” as when someone declares themselves a fan of “Star Trak” or the “Jerry Steinfeld Show”.
Anyway, I’m digressing. Back to topic. If you haven’t done so already, sign-up for Google and Yahoo! alerts immediately. By no means should they replace traditional, comprehensive clipping services like Cision (formerly Bacon’s) or Custom Scoop but what they do provide are additional monitoring devices that every marketing professional should take advantage of. And did I mention that they’re free? Simply sign up and enter your choice of query or topic and you are sent an email each time your search term is referenced on the web (you control the frequency of the emails you receive). You can even set the alerts to troll the blogosphere to clue you in whenever your company (or name) is mentioned by a blogger.
Here are the links:
Google Alerts: www.google.com/alerts
Yahoo! Alerts: alerts.yahoo.com