The crux of the case was that anyone is allowed to bid on trademarked keywords via the AdWords system and have their ads appear alongside search results, however, only the trademark owner may use the trademarked term in their ads (this is something lots of people outside the PPC industry are unaware of). The brand owners were concerned that ads directing users to counterfeit products were being shown, thereby violating their rights.

Very few people in the business expected anything other than a ruling in Google’s favour and the court obliged by saying:

“Google has not infringed trademark law by allowing advertisers to purchase keywords corresponding to their competitors’ trademarks”

Google’s Litigation Counsel responded in an official blog post with:

Trade marks are part of our daily life and culture, helping us to identify the products and services that we may be looking for. They are key for companies to market and advertise their products and services. But trade mark rights are not absolute.

We believe that user interest is best served by maximizing the choice of keywords, ensuring relevant and informative advertising for a wide variety of different contexts. For instance, if a user is searching for information about a particular car, he or she will want more than just that car’s website. They might be looking for different dealers that sell that car, second hand cars, reviews about the car or looking for information about other cars in the same category.

Why Was Quality Score Ignored?

I haven’t seen anyone mention the AdWords Quality Score mechanism and I do wonder why as it provides a certain degree of economic control in favour of brand owners in situations like this.

Speaking simply, if I decided to start bidding against an LVMH Trademarked term, my Quality Score would probably be much lower than LVMH’s as 1) my adverts wouldn’t use the trademarked term (so the click through rate would probably be low) and 2) I wouldn’t be sending someone to a site that was heavily associated with the trademark. The resulting low QS would mean higher click costs for me compared to the price LVMH would pay, possibly making my bidding grossly uneconomical.

Thus, despite the threat of lawsuits and general opprobrium, there is also a serious and possibly terminal financial disincentive inherent in the AdWords system that actively discourages bidding against any brand term that isn’t your own. They didn’t talk about that, did they?

Hello Bing, Goodbye Yahoo

Perhaps the most significant recent development has been the long-mooted coming together of Microsoft and Yahoo in a partnership that sees one of the web’s oldest and most revered search engines make way for the Redmond giant’s technology. The two companies had been in a will-they-won’t-they dance for what seems like years, but at the end of July the deal was finally inked.

In exchange for an 88% share of search ad revenue, Bing will replace Yahoo’s search engine and bring much-desired exposure of Microsoft’s technology to the 570 million or so visitors Yahoo currently attracts. The immediate gain for Microsoft is the potential to increase its share of the search market to around 28%, which will bring with it vastly increased search ad revenue. Interestingly, more recent statistics have shown Bing’s search ad market share soaring by around 44%, a seemingly clear sign that advertisers and web users appreciate the service.

Microsoft is of course taking something of a multi-pronged strategy, with its earlier investment in Facebook: see below for more.

The deal also puts another nail in the coffin of Yahoo’s strategy, which through the tenures of Terry Semel and Jerry Yang has been somewhat suspect: remember, this is the company that in 2002 failed to acquire Google for $5 billion – what a bargain that would have been!

What does Microsoft-Yahoo Deal mean for Search?

Rising Traffic – The clearest implication is that Bing is now a much more important consideration for search optimisation and marketing campaigns. Hitherto, our experience of Bing traffic has been somewhat underwhelming, typically our clients see a roughly 20:1 Google to Bing ratio. That is now highly likely to change and as such we’ll be focusing much more on Bing.

Lack of Back-link Data – From an SEO perspective, one of the jewels in Yahoo’s crown is the superb Site Explorer, which provides a very thorough breakdown of the back-links a given web site enjoys. Google’s Webmaster Panel does have a backlink tool, but next to Yahoo’s, it’s rather poor. With the M:Y deal, are we in danger of losing Yahoo’s backlink data? Will it be migrated to the new platform? We can only hope it will as losing it would put a huge dent in every SEO’s toolkit.

Facebook, Friendfeed & Designs on Real-Time Search

One of the hottest topics on in the search community right now is real-time-search and whether the major players are actually capable of delivering updates to their indexes in the same way that the likes of Twitter can. With this in mind, Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed is very interesting, as it brings the social networking site closer to being a provider of real-time search results across your network of friends and contacts. Some have said this pits them squarely against Google and have even spoken of a Google vs Facebook war. Adding the rising popularity of Twitter to the mix, and the scene is set for something of a search showdown.

Thinking laterally, for many people Facebook is the de facto starting point for a web browsing session, so if the site can deliver a rich and compelling search experience it has a very strong change of diverting the searching habits of some of its 240 million users away from Google.

Google Perks Up

We do love a pun here, and Google’s latest Caffeine update provides ample opportunity for them. Silliness aside, the update does represent something of a step change for Google as it aims to tackle a number of persistent challenges: Speed, Relevance and Index Size. Whilst access to the preview system has been limited, early feedback from the search community has been generally positive, particularly on the speed of results (halved in many cases), the ranking of authoritative domains over ones that are less so and a closer alignment of search results with relevance, something that Bing has incidentally been making noises about. Social Media links seem to be rising in rank, but with the recent ‘revelation’ that 40% of Tweets are ‘pointless babble‘ is this necessarily a good thing?

Friends Reunited Perks Down

It was announced a few days ago that Brightsolid, the internet arm of D.C. Thompson Publishing, agreed to acquire Friends Reunited from ITV for £25 million, the troubled broadcaster thereby taking a hit of £150m on the £175m it paid for the site back in 2005. Whilst the popularity of the site has waned (with Facebook bearing down, it’s no surprise), it does allow BrightSolid to develop its interests in the Ancestry and Geneaology market, one into which it has made tremendous strides.

With FRU now in the hands of a smaller (and arguably nimbler) owner, we certainly hope that it’s a positive sign and wish them all the best – there aren’t enough internet-based companies in Scotland for our liking!

In the past I’ve been a bit of a die-hard when it comes to digital music. Although I’m a huge fan of iTunes and I’m on my second iPod, thus far I’ve been a little resistant to purchasing digital-only music. I have purchased a couple of iTunes plus albums, but apart from that everything in my collection has been ripped from CDs I’ve bought. Why am I boring you with this background? Well, I was recently introduced to Spotify and I think it might have completely turned my attitude to digital music upside-down. And, if it’s done that to me, chances are it will do the same for thousands, if not millions of other music-lovers.

But why? It totally removes the need for an on-disk music library. It has the potential to be an iTunes killer, and an Amazon MP3 killer, and in fact the death knell for any other download-based music service you’d care to mention. By eschewing the traditional model of downloading tracks to your PC or Mac, Spotify streams the music to you, on demand. Unlike the other ‘iTunes Killers’ that aim to replace the desktop application and/or  subvert DRM, Spotify totally changes eliminates the music-ownership model.

How Does it Work Then?

First off, you sign up for one of three accounts:

• Free – which is ad-supported
• One Day Pass - gives you 24 hour access for £0.99
• Monthly Subscription - ad free and gives you more features for £9.99 a month

Then you download the application to your computer, search for what you want to listen to, and away you go. Sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? And it sounds fairly run-of-the-mill as well? Not worth getting excited about? You’d be dead wrong.

Spotify’s aim is to have everything available for listening to. Everything. It’ll take them time to do that, but right now, there’s an absolutely amazing choice of music. Since signing up barely a week ago I’ve listened to some old favourites, albums by artists I already know and love, and music from artists I’ve never heard of before. Without Spotify, I wouldn’t have been introduced to the amazing ‘Smokin’ O.P.’s‘ by Bob Seger, I wouldn’t have heard the Stereo MCs ‘Live at the BBC‘ (that took me back!) and I certainly wouldn’t have listened to Eilert Pilarm and his staggeringly bad rendition of Suspicious Minds (it’s really something). Piano trio jazz, my favourite music, is very well served indeed, thanks to the huge back catalogue going back to the 1950s.

A New Digital Marketing Opportunity?

One of the reasons I’m particularly excited about Spotify (aside from pure geekery) is that it presents a new and very compelling digital marketing opportunity. I mentioned the Ad-Supported Free Version and whilst most of the ads have been for HMV or “MADAGASCAR THE MOVIE!!”, an ad for Snow Patrol caught my attention and caused me to act. When was the last time you acted a few seconds after a radio ad? Or a banner ad? Err…

The ad started with a member of the band introducing himself and encouraging you to listen to their new album, which is of course available on Spotify. In that instant, the interface changed to show me the album and gave me a link to their biography and back catalogue.

So that was me – I played the album, listened to it all the way through and also checked out some Bon Iver, also recommended  by Snow Patrol.

Looking back on it, I was amazed at just how compelling the ad was, even at this early stage. As the number of advertisers grows, and as the profiling improves, so the integration between advert and action will improve. And with that will come more effective advertising – neatly solving the problem of how to finance digital music.

Sad to say, I could almost see a day when I don’t buy another iTunes track or a CD and simply stick to Spotify. Given a couple of years, the catalogue will be even bigger, they’ll have videos in there, movies potentially…

If I Were Steve Jobs

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what I’d do if I was Steve Jobs, but in this case, if I were him I’d be firstly very worried and secondly looking for my cheque book.

I’m not one for predictions but this really could be the iTunes killer, unless it’s snapped up whole by Apple before it gets too big.

What Do You Think?

Share my enthusiasm? Disagree with my assessment of Eilert Pilarm? Let us know with a comment!