Forbes reports that MySpace feted marketing and PR types after the release of new data that suggests that marketing dollars spend on MySpace go far. *Really* far. All because of the power of word of mouth.

Wheeee.

Super low acquisition costs are being tossed around, with Electronic Arts used as a model — something in the range of 0.30-0.40 cents per customer, because although they actually spent over a dollar per customer, all of those individuals told their *friends*, some of whom now expressed a desire to purchase said game. If their numbers are to believed, almost four times as many “friends” who were never exposed to the advertising now wanted to buy said game, thanks, we presume to word of mouth buzz.

Sounds good, but I have a few questions / issues.

1. The study was produced *by* MySpace: So of course its going to be a positive study, with great results. We should all take it with a grain of salt (as I know you all are already doing).

2. We need independent confirmation of these results: Can the results be replicated if it was tracked and followed by an independent firm on MySpace? Would MySpace ever allow marketing firms this level of access to create their own set of metrics?

3. Operationability of tracking users? How are these users tracked? How do we know that there was a direct connection between individuals exposed to advertising to individuals who weren’t (but still wanted to buy?)

4. Potential customers does not equal actual customers: You cannot talk about return on investment with *potential* customers. You have to follow them all the way to check out, and even then, a great study would follow up on purchases to see how many returned the game. Customers with an intent to purchase might be different in their ability to complete a sale with respect to direct advertising and word of mouth. Would those directly exposed to ads be more likely to purchase? Or would those who were getting “buzzed”? (If you could in fact prove that they were the recipient of said buzz)

I think it makes a great deal of intuitive sense that word of mouth marketing ought to work. It ought to have lower acquisition costs. Its message should spread, and it should spread quickly. And in environments of highly networked individuals, its an attractive thought that word of mouth marketing is an idea whose time has come.

But am I the only person who is wondering about this particular study — funded and commissioned *by* MySpace *about* marketing in MySpace?

So, in an effort to catch up on all my reading, I stumbled back upon MyBlogLog’s own blog to find that near the middle of December, the ubiquitous “Eric” (who is everyone’s “friend” when they start up on MBL) announced that MBL was having difficulties with “spammers”. Well, this is no surprise. Eric, welcome to the price of social software success.

MBL has been growing in leaps and bounds. In a post that never quite made it to being published (in some parts due to sheer laziness, and in others, because my laptop kept on shutting down before I got to save the article), I tried to note that one particular metric had actually been doubling every month, and that was the number of blogs that had included the reader roll that graces this very site (you know, the one with faces). That’s pretty impressive. Its also broken into the Alexa top 1000. Also, pretty impressive.

So, with the number of active MBL’ers doubling every month, and traffic going through the roof, coupled with its unique role in providing a superstantial network layer to blogs, it is no wonder that over the past month or so, I’ve noticed that MBL has been a victim of social software exploitation — or, “gaming”, as is popularly known to SEOs, and Digg fans.

And it got me thinking wherein I came up with a totally unscientific, totally unvalidated equation that might explain the factors which lead to a site being gamed — and there relationship therein.

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So last week or so, I blogged about how ReviewMe’s real benefit wasn’t in creating buzz for advertisers; rather, it could be used for SEO purposes, in that ReviewMe creates a marketplace for purchasing inbound links from your pick of high PR sites.

Want to know what Google thinks? Matt Cutts, Google software engineering guru, was interviewed at the recent PubCon in Las Vegas — and its quite revealing. Check out the inteview over here, and fast forward to around the -7:30m point. At that point he starts talking about how Google recognizes social media optimization, and how some marketers might want to use ReviewMe, PayPerPost, or even Text-Link-Ads, and its other brethren to create backlinks to their sites.

The money is in this phrase: “… I’ll put it to you this way — I’m not a fan when people don’t provide total disclosure … if you want to pay for links to generate traffic — totally OK, just make sure it doesn’t affect search engines”.
So basically what he’s saying is that using these sites to create traffic is a legitimate reason for using these services; but to use them to boost your search engine placement is a bad idea. Instead, he suggests using the “rel = Nofollow” attribute to those links, so that Google won’t be fooled.

Matt Cutts doesn’t explicitly say that sites who use these methods in an effort to improve their Google rankings will be penalized in any fashion; however, his language suggests that he is keenly aware of their usage for this purupose, and that it definitely seems a no-no in his book.

And there you have it.

Now, whether or not they have the technology to tell that an advertiser has paid for that link or not — particularly through PayPerPost — is up in the air. But, iIf Google is a god to you, then you’ve just heard it from the lips of one of their high priests — paying for links for the purpose of improving your SERPs is known to Google … and you should use it at your own risk.

tip: Amit Agarwal [through Facebook!]

Good news for all you Techmeme lovers who don’t quite yet have the juice to get into the Techmeme Top Item / Headline list — but do have enough juice to pay for a sponsored listing.

As of early last evening, Gabe is experimenting with putting Sponsored posts not only on the sidebar — but also including recent posts right into the Top Listing at the 10 spot, starting with CCUCEO’s post on “Just Finished Reading Radical Edge … “. Its high lighted in grey (I think — I’m color blind).

Do they have to pay more for this inserted Top Item placement? Apparently not. He’s offering right now as a bonus right now.

How is the sponsored post chosen amongst the three current sponsors? No, Gabe doesn’t roll any dice (quashing the rumour that for a small sum you can be +2 to to Top Item Placement). Much like the current scheme for Techmeme, its all done by algorithm in the background.

Now, ironically, earlier in the same day (yesterday), Tabloo’s post on Yahoo’s tribulations made it organically into the Top Item list — and is still there above CCUCEO’s sponsored listing.

With Tabloo’s post hitting “Top Item Status” what I’d like to know (and Gabe, you can chime in here on this) is if Gabe is running any metrics in the background to see how these two items compare: does the organic top item per unit time pull in more traffic? (probably) Does it convert better? (probably) Does it stay up longer (on average)? (maybe).

Or, from Tabloo’s side what the magnitude of difference in the sponsored column versus organic placement is (I’m guessing a big difference); back to Gabe — whether or not he gives any rebate back to advertisers who make it into the organic placement, since it really seems like the purpose of those sponsored slots on the side is to get them on the Techmeme page (I’m guessing not).

Bottom line is that the new spot for sponsored advertisers is good news for sponsors and equivocal news for blogs and news sites for now. One question I never go to ask is — does the sponsored site squeeze out any organic placements?

(I’m guessing probably not).

So Gabe “Techmeme” Riviera released his thoughts on how to get listed on Techmeme. Basically, it involves writing good content that gets linked back to. Let’s translate this a little further: write notable content that is link-bait.

What he also divulged was there is an “x-factor” in all of this — a secret sauce, a trump card, an inside man, a tunnel to that honey pot of Techmeme gold.

What is it?

Its simple — send traffic to Techmeme.

Gabe wants Techmeme to get inbound links. Google juice. Pimp action. To be showered with praise. Have flowers strewn at his feet. First borns named after the news aggregator (”Techmeme Hung?” — that’s a direct IN, and what my next child is named — you heard it here first).

… I think you get the idea. :)

As was clear at the Pre-Mesh Hookup, people know I post frequently, and from time to time, it goes up to Techmeme. So what happens when you actually get listed? What about traffic? Does it compare to Digg? Well, its not what you think.

Here are my thoughts on the whole thing: (more…)

Well, if the unending torrential flood of email is any metric, Rob “Scobleizer” Scoble is clearly drowning in his success.

Mr. Scoble sympathizes with Mike Arrington:

If you aren’t a journalist or a blogger with an audience you have no idea what Mike is talking about. I get hundreds of emails every day, many of which are from people, companies, and PR firms asking me to blog stuff. …

I absolutely hate dealing with this stuff. For the most part I just simply don’t. I don’t respond. I learned that answering email causes even more email and I simply don’t have time. All I did yesterday was dig through email and I barely made a dent. That’s why I’m up at 2:40 a.m. editing videos.

I guess the question is “Why have an email address at all if you’re not going to bother answering – OR, find it hard to answer in any reasonable amount of time?”

[Aside -- think what you want of Richard Edelman, the dude answers the comments on his blog personally by email -- and THAT is classy]
We can look to Mike Arrington’s own admission that he recently deleted hundreds and hundreds of emails after one wild debauched weekend at the Online News Association Conference as an example.
Perhaps another way of looking at it is that when bloggers get so large they can’t answer their own emails in expedient fashion, should they have an email address to respond to – “disclosing” that people might never get a reply ….

… or do the media 1.0 thing, and just hire someone? 

So I don’t know Paul Stamatiou. I’ve never met him. I only discovered his Blog yesterday. But he is now on The List.

Why?

For no other reason than his blogging success.
The guy starts out with a half-dead mac-mini one year ago, and starts blogging on Wordpress with a K2 Theme on Technology and other things. One year later after a helluva lot of sweat and tears:

1. Alexa Rank: 24 305
2. Feedburner Subscribers: 2284
3. PageRank: 5

Nice. :)

What’s interesting is that in his one year anniversary post, he makes an interesting comment:

I realize that many of you enjoy reading my content through RSS. That’s good and I wanted to say that I’ll always be providing full, ad-free feeds. However, I encourage you to minimize your RSS aggregator every once in a while and chime in on the conversation, or even start one up. That’s how I know if people are actually listening. Site metrics are one thing; actual, tangible involvement and engagement is another. How will I ever know if I got through to the 3,676 people that stopped by yesterday?

One of my other passing fancies is web metrics. And I think Mr. Stamatiou hit it right on the head with this one. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what your Alexa Rank, the number of posted subscribers, pagerank, or other magical forms of metrics you use.

(Well, perhaps if you try and sell advertising on your website it is — but I digress.)

I think the real measure of a site’s effectiveness is just that – how effective it is in garnering an action … a response.

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