| Into the MyST | Thoughts and ideas about MySmartChannels by Bill French and F. Andy Seidl, Co-founders of MyST Technology Partners. | |
| | | November 16, 2004 | | I appreciate the value of pay-per-click advertising models, but SEO companies like RFS simply don't understand the bigger picture and opportunity for building sustaining services. | I had an interesting conversation today with an employee at (RFS Client Care - don't bother clicking through, they apparently don't actually have a Web site). They're trying to sell PPC keywords and key-phrases for all search engines except Google. I asked why not Google, and he said that Google has less than a 14% market share. This took me by surprise since Search Engine Watch maintains pretty accurate tallies on search engine utilization. In mid-2004 the numbers looked like this: 
I mentioned to the caller that I prefer organic search but I don't rule out an advertising strategy that includes many things including pay-per-click services. The sales person was obviously not happy that a) I told him his numbers were worse than misleading; they were simply wrong, and b) pay-per-click was a form of arms race that that isn't likely to have a positive long-range outcome. There are many factors worthy of debate about SEO (specifically ppc), but if you're going to pitch a service based on data, at least use accurate information. The PPC sales person also said that it was important for me to get high rankings on terms that were popular; a subject that I have written about previously. I'm sorry - I don't want to appear in search results for popular terms unless those terms accurately and unambiguously describe what I sell or what I've written about. Call it targeted relevance, or deeper prospect qualification; it just seems like a better approach to generating interest in your products and your business. From my brief exchange with this person, I came to understand that RFS Client Care is not the least concerned with clients or their businesses. They sell advertising, but they call it SEO - I think that's misleading but that's their market positioning choice. They are in a position to re-invent their services by providing a holistic approach to search discoverability - one that is sustainable and achieves better results for their clients, but I don't think they appreciate the sea change upon them. | |
| | November 14, 2004 | | We spend a good deal of time thinking about the definition of KM and ways to improve it, but we don't drill nearly deep enough into the philosophy of KM. | This post caught my attention because of the definition of Generation 3 KM: "In Generation 3, we acknowledge Gen 2 (content management) but also see knowledge is simultaneously a flow and a thing—so for the flows we manage channels." (pg 37) Dave Snowden Hmmm - channels. ;-) | | |
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