Seth Godin: Google yourself

Why? This from Seth Godin…

If you’re a salesperson, your prospects already do.
If you’re looking for a job, your prospective employers already do.
If you’ve got a job, your co-workers already do.

What do they see? Do you know?

…and this from Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism)…

“If you’re a journalist — or a journalism student who hopes to enter the field — this should concern you. First, what results do you get when you Google yourself (first name, last name, no quotation marks)? Most important, what are the top two or three links? I hope they do not go to pages about you that make you look like an idiot, a sex fiend, or a drunk.”

They both offer suggestions on how to improve your Google juice.

Buy $1,000 in radio spots, get $2,000 back

TechCrunch wonders if Google’s radio ad network –Google Audio– is in trouble:

“Google is offering $2,000 to any advertiser who spends $1,000 on a Google Audio ad campaign. The $2,000 comes in the form of a credit on future ad campaigns, but part of it still comes out of Google’s pocket since it needs to pay the radio stations who will run the ads. It amounts to a “buy one, get two free” offer and is good through the end of the year.

If (Google) truly has a better way of buying and selling radio ads, advertisers and radio stations will quickly figure that out on their own. It is not a good sign when Google has to resort to paying customers to try out a new product.”

Update 10/15/07: This from a reader (who prefers to remain anonymous) who works at a radio station that runs Google Audio ads:

“This week we ran on average 18 :60’s a day for Google. They just fill in avails that are on our schedule, so many of them are in the evening between 6p-11p. Some hours may have a Google Ad in each stop set.

I don’t see the checks but I’ve heard they range from $500-$2,000 a month. We do have the ability to block out any hours or programming we don’t want their stuff in.

To me it would just seem to be up to the station owner/company is the money worth tying up the time with these filler type ads.  I’ve yet to hear an ad I thought specifically targets to our region or even state… and no real big name company’s like Ford, GM, McDonald’s, JC Penney, Target or anything.”

Google Lunar X Prize

“Put a robotic lander on the moon, take a spin across the lunar landscape, and beam back visuals — with minimal or no government assistance. Pull that off before anyone else and the galaxy’s richest, most audacious Internet company (Google) will hand over $20 million.” [Wired]

After reading this story, the first thing that popped into my head was: I have more confidence in Google (and a few other companies for that matter) than I do in the U. S. government. My gut tells me Google is more efficient, less corrupt and possessing greater vision.

Time to rethink the AP model?

Cory Bergman at Lost Remote raises some interesting questions about the AP model in light of Google’s deal to host AP stories (rather than link back to newspaper websites).

He also points to a blog post on the "prickly issue of local broadcasters pulling local newspaper stories via the wire and posting them online (and occasionally vice-versa). Now that both mediums have expanded to the web, they’re direct competitors. And the local wire goes a long way to beef up the depth of content on a local TV site."

I’m pretty sure he’s talking about TV broadcasters. I’m afraid nobody is much concerned about radio stations getting their news from Google.