2 replies to this topic

[markm]

Hi,

You all may find this interesting....I was pulled into a Yahoo focus group about a new Yahoo paid inclusion service.

You can read a post I made on this www.webmasterworld.com/forum1/2297.htm

Any thoughts?

Mark

Edited by scottiecl, 28 September 2003 - 09:35 AM.

[MakeMeTop]

Thanks for the info, markm.

It appears that Yahoo are doing all kind of research on what will appeal to search engine marketers. As they already have (or nearly have) all aspects of what they are discussing under their control, to some extent they already have paid inclusion and almost have PPC.

I was surveyed by Yahoo over 6 months ago about how I would view several of these methodoligies - now (I suppose) we will have to wait and see what they come up with.

I wonder if any others of us here have been invited onto these discussion/focus groups? If not - I wonder why not?

[markm]

It was quite an interesting experience...and they paid me $150 on top of it. We weren't under non-disclosure or anything like that...I asked.

The facilitator told us we were the 6'th (and I think last) group...and I think there were about 12 people (all in the Bay area, I presume). So probably 60-70 people.

Our group were mostly people involved with Search Marketing in one way or another, although for some I'd say the involvement was not that heavy. I would bet the other groups were more probably the end customers.

They were not trying to get feedback on the services, but rather the marketing messages to see which was most compelling. To me, that tells me that the product is further along, early on you would want to validate the features themselves. But again, I have no way of knowing since they wouldn't really answer questions.

It raises some interesting questions on their strategy, since Inktomi has paid inclusion already. It makes me think that Yahoo is going to bank on the human element to improve on relevancy as opposed to Google. This fits in with the way Overture works.