A couple of months back I announced the existence of Google Wave (read it here) and how it can possibly be used as a communication and collaboration tool with clients. Well, wait no further… Today, Google has invited 100,000 lucky users for Wave beta testing; each invitee can invite a limited number of people joining them in creating waves.  Unfortunately, I am not one of those lucky few who received an invite, yet.

If you’re a Wave user, I WILL become your best friend IF you would kindly extend me an invite. Email: jiel(at)admerasia.com =)

Yesterday, I was approached by a co-worker requesting for a solution that pretty much sums up what Google Wave is offering; a way to communicate from a single point of access without additional server setups. Unfortunately, I had to tell him I don’t have anything and firmly instructed him to stick with prehistoric emails and IM chats. Harsh I know, but we all have to work with what our technology gods had given us. For now at least…

I understand that this news may not be “Asian-American-” or “advertising-” related but I feel it may be a significant step that can possibly change the way we communicate with clients, vendors, advertisers, coordinating events as well as internal communication.  The best part of this is you can access this platform from anywhere in the world as long as you have internet access, a.k.a. Cloud Computing.

Another cool offering by Google is Fast Flip, an online news aggregator that “mimics” the experience of flipping the pages of a magazine or newspaper.

If you haven’t already read my previous post (click here) which mentioned briefly about our SEO quest, I’ll sum it up for you: Admerasia created a flash-based site that search engines cannot index but we also created new site pages that put us on Google’s radar. In fact, we are now ranked 8th in organic search results for “Asian American Advertising” on Google and 18th place for Yahoo search. Ooooh, those are lucky numbers.

A little over a week ago, I decided to check our ranking for “Asian American Advertising” on Google and discovered Admerasia.com to be Numero Uno on the list. I felt so excited that I literally jumped out of my chair to inform Dennis, our Copywriter. Unfortunately, the excitement was short lived. Dennis did a search on his computer and returned a different result. It was puzzling at first how each individual person can have such different results.

After spending some time investigating, we finally realized that the result I had was due to the fact that I was logged into our Google account which kept a detailed log of my web search history and the links that I visited. Apparently, Google search uses this data to “customize” result for each individual based on past web queries, top sites, and top clicks. Of course, no one but Google knows the exact formula used to determine search result ranking but I can only speculate that the variables in our Google account was used to rearrange the results catering to the individual’s need and internet habits.

In my Google Trends page, my top query is “Asian American Advertising” and top site is www.admerasia.com.  So naturally, a search for Asian American Advertising will push Admerasia from eight place to first (while I was logged in). The second that I log out, the results returned to normal.

Another funny thing I just noticed is the paid/sponsored search results on the top and right hand side of Google’s search results page also changed depending on whether or not I’m logged in. How will this affect individuals and companies who had placed the highest bid to be first on the sponsored links? Is it fair if their paid search phrase does not result in their site being listed in the first spot? If enough people stayed logged into their Google account I suspect the search result will vary greatly. Advertisers beware, just because you have paid top dollar for your site to be listed as first for a specific search query does not mean you are guaranteed a top spot (assuming my theory is correct, of course) on every computer.

The global landscape of web technology continues to evolve at a fast and steady pace. How does one keep up?

Not too long ago we decided to “redo” our website  to present ourselves in a fresh and innovative way. We dove into the realm of flash and animated fun; we designed our entire site in pure flash. Exciting, huh? It was…until we hit the SEO (search engine optimization, for those not in the web lingo loop) roadblock. To tackle the issue we created additional pages that search engines can “crawl.” To make a long story short, we now have flash animation, chat rooms, videos, blogs, news, rss feeds, etc;  Web 2.0 goodness! Kudos to Admerasia’s web development team!

Many small Asian American Advertising agencies have tight budgets and limited resources to take full advantage of the current web’s buffet-like offerings. Open source programs and free google tools are just a few of the infinite web resources that can be used online to benefit advertising agencies. However, there is a “but”…BUT, without a team of highly qualified web experts, developers and engineers, your ability to exploit these offerings are limited. Think about what would happen to tech industry giants like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Yahoo if you take away their teams of thousands of web and technology experts and give them the budget that small Asian American Advertising agencies have to work with. They would simply implode and collapse like a giant wafer-thin cookie in a typhoon.

I’m sure many IT guys have had this conversation before…
Random person: “Our technology is behind, we need to stay up to date.”
IT guy: “New technology costs a lot of money, time and manpower; resources we don’t have.”
Random person: “There is plenty of free resources on the Internet we can use.”
IT guy: [thinking to himself] “Uh yes, I agree BUT show me where you can get free web developers, systems engineers and technology experts and I’ll show you some mind-blowing, state-of-the-art technology that will knock your socks to the moon!”

It’s like asking a common civilian in be like Superman: faster than a speeding bullet, more power than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound on a 9-5 work schedule. Okay, maybe that was a bit exaggerated but you catch my drift.

I think today’s online technology is great and widely available but more funding is necessary to keep advertising agencies on top of the ever-growing and changing realm of Web technology.

Last Thursday, my workout partner wanted to get coffee and cigarettes before we began our workout routine so we drove all the way out to Littleneck just so he can get his caffeine and nicotine fix. Long drive, I know; he claims it saves him $3 per pack because it was cheaper at the gas station WAYYY out there. Honestly, I didn’t think it was worth the gas and time to travel so far but I had nothing better to do.

As we pulled into the gas station, I noticed something different. Something I’ve never seen before… An LCD monitor on top of the pump station. “COOL!” was my initial thought. I was expecting to catch a couple minutes of movie while I wait for my friend to buy his cigarettes but unfortunately, all I saw on display were advertisements and a short message on the side with instructions to get your products advertised on the screen. It’s absolutely brilliant!

Whoever came up with the idea to put a LCD monitor on top of the pump to serve ads is pure genius. I don’t know about everyone else but when I go to the pump to fill up, I usually have nothing better to do but to lean on my car for 3-5 minutes waiting for the tank to fill up.  This is a great time to force-feed ads to customers whether they like it or not. They’ll be forced to watch it while they wait for their gas tank to fill. Even if they don’t watch the screen, they’ll still have to listen to the audio.

I think we’ll be seeing more ad serving LCD screens popping up at gas stations everywhere. You might even be able to target specific ethnic audiences based on the demographic statistics of the surrounding neighborhood.

What is cloud you ask? It is a commonly used metaphor for the Internet. You see, for decades when technology geeks like me draw out network diagrams, we used the image of a cloud to depict the Internet.  Lately, there’s been a lot of buzz about services being offered on the Internet that provides a more mobile and scalable solution to road warriors and average Joes alike. These services also provided a broad spectrum of ways to communicate with your target audience.

With today’s technology and the availability of mobile devices with high-speed internet connection, cloud computing is becoming much easier to adopt. It provides convenience to the consumer and a new way for advertisers to reach the market on a global scale. Many corporations are already diverting additional resources away from traditional media to invest in online advertising and developing web 2.0 websites focusing on communication, information-sharing and collaboration over the ‘cloud.’

Companies like Ducati and Lego have already hopped on board the cloud/web 2.0 bandwagon with great success.
(Source: A $65 Billion Advertising Shift?)

What will be the future of traditional media like print and television? I think they’ll be around for many more decades. Call me Old School (or just plain old) but I still prefer to read my magazines in print and not have to worry about when the battery on my netbook will go out. I still choose to get my daily dose of news from AM NY and Metro over reading the news on my Samsung Instinct phone. Cloud computing or cloud advertising is ushering in a new era but the dinosaurs are here to stay. Their numbers may dwindle but they have already established a strong root in our modern society.

(Afterthought: Have you noticed Admerasia’s new website? Of course you have, or you wouldn’t be here.)

Update: Speaking of online communication and collaboration, leave it to Google to “one up” everything with (drumroll….) Google Wave! The demo looks promising. Possibly something we can take advantage of to communicate with clients?
http://wave.google.com/

As we all know, the constant battle between the OS industry’s biggest players, specifically Microsoft and Apple, is a never-ending saga.  Microsoft’s recent advertisement campaigns promoted the idea that PCs are a better bang for your buck and Macs are just too expensive.

Laptops under $1000; “You find it, you keep it”

Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer, apparently received a call from Apple’s legal department requesting to have the ad pulled out, giving the reason that they had lowered their price by $100.

And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business.

Does a difference of $100 really make the ad irrelevant? My opinion – No! I failed to see any legal or sensible reasoning behind their request.  In fact, I found myself slightly amused after reading this. “All is fair in love and war.” I have to admit, I’m a PC. 

To balance the “fairness” boat a little; here’s a compilation of Apple ads attacking Microsoft.

Being an Asian American Advertising agency, we all know how powerful well-thought out and cleverly planned ads can promote your business and/or demote your competitors’.  Advertising is a competitive industry and ads that attack the competitor is common and almost second nature. Should Microsoft pull out the ad because of a $100 price adjustment? My advice to Apple: “Get over it! Come up with something better.”

For your reading enjoyment and the sources of my info, please visit:
Article from zdnet.com
Article from pcmag.com
Article from informationweek.com