All Articles Tagged "bing"
Nine Online Business Directories You Need to Join
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As a business owner, one of your top goals outside of making a profit should be visibility within your market space. After all, you want the most amount of people to see your brand, right? We have already established the importance of having a website for your company. Now it’s time to discuss business directories.
Online business directories are a great marketing tool for companies of all sizes as you can upload photos, have clients post testimonials and list important info specific to your business. Being online, you have a greater chance of reaching more potential customers than you would just listing in tangible publications. The name of the game is customer attraction so the more you put yourself out there — the greater the chance of getting those new clients.
Check out nine online business directories you should seriously join.
Google vs. Bing: How Can Our Search Behavior Add Up To More Dollars For Our Demo?
Search. No doubt, you do it every day; probably several times a day depending on how events unfold at work and at home. It’s hard to remember a time when it didn’t exist.
In an increasingly fast-paced world where information not only moves more quickly than ever before as well as moves at an exponential rate within each second, categorization and information filtering has never been more important. New terms are being utilized in our society such as “relationship capital” and “information capital” as major elements that come in to play along with traditional capital.
Depending on who I know and what I know that they don’t, my personal “stock” can go up or down. So in a society where information is becoming more coveted; how important are African-Americans on the digital food chain, given the continued rising strength of both our increased population and economic buying power, given to the organizers and gate-keepers of information and search such as Google and Microsoft’s Bing.
And more importantly, how will the perception affect your pocket as, perhaps, a young African-American with an economic dream?
I only ask because recently Google made a big announcement regarding its new Hispanic strategy focus. What makes this business development particularly interesting is because the Google’s approach to the U.S. Hispanic market is centered more on the cultural identity of Latinos than on the difference in language.
This is the strategy designed by Mark Lopez, the head of Google’s U.S. Hispanic unit who is reportedly trying to significantly increase the amount of advertising directed toward U.S. digital media in Spanish. “Of the Hispanic media’s $4 billion in income from advertising,” Lopez was quoted as saying, “barely 3 percent is going to digital media. In the coming years, there will be accelerated growth.” The move is significant because Google’s interest opens the doors to an accelerated growth in the Hispanic digital market.”
But unless I’ve missed something, I have not yet seen this same fervor and anticipation directed by Google toward our market. The U.S. Census Bureau has provided undeniable figures in the consistent growth of the Black population as well, and other statistical organizations has shown that our numbers are growing more in on-line usage as well as out-index in Web access from mobile devices. While we are undeniably (and hopefully for the most part) Americans, African-Americans have always had an additional cultural context from which it is best to access us as well.
So what gives?
Are we simply taken for granted by the mighty search engine even though Target Market News consistently shows absolutely staggering purchase power? I’d love to see Google’s interest also equal an “accelerated growth” in the Black digital market. The revenue would certainly be welcome for existing and future young digital pioneers of color such as yourselves, wouldn’t it?
But Google is a savvy company. I’m not counting them out on this. And maybe it will also nudge Bing as well, which I actually haven’t seen do any more to lure the African-American consumer beyond a mild attempt at collaboration with Jay-Z’s book publisher for the release of Decoded last year.
Can Bing Catch Google? Microsoft Spends Millions on ESPN, Jay-Z Partnerships
(Fast Company) — Microsoft is reportedly spending about $100 million (a low estimate, an industry source tells me) marketing Bing, the only formidable competitor to Google left in the search-engine game. Loads of that cash is heading toward the myriad “search overload” commercials you’ve likely seen. The company also invested tons in a generous cashback rewards program. It launched innovative advertising partnerships with Jay-Z and theSundance Film Festival. And on Monday, Microsoft announced that it’s teaming with ESPN for a feature football series leading up to the Super Bowl.
Inside Jay-Z’s Launch of “Decoded”
(Fast Company) — As Jay’s protégé’s album dropped this week (and leaked much earlier on the Web), Jay himself was revealing what he’d long had in store for the publishing world: a game-changing marketing plan for his autobiography, Decoded, itself a groundbreaking book. Beyond a mere collection of stories–which many readers would find plenty tantilizing–Decoded is also a rap Rosetta Stone. Listeners can literally decode Jay’s lyrics on 11 studio albums to unlock new details about the 40-year-old’s personal history. The marketing for the book took the idea further, mashing up old-school billboard advertising, new-school social media, mobile apps, and more for an interactive game that let players unlock pages of the book and enter to win concert tickets and memorabilia. Jay’s corporate partners, meanwhile, scored a fortune in buzz.
Jay initially hooked up with the creative agency Droga5, who conceived, created, implemented, produced, and delivered the campaign with the help of Microsoft search engine Bing. Droga5 slapped all 320 pages of Decoded in various blown-up sizes on some unexpected surfaces: a rooftop in New Orleans, a pool bottom in Miami (above), cheeseburger wrappers in New York City, a pool table in Jay’s 40/40 Club, and many more.
Reading became a scavenger hunt.Fans could log on to bing.com/jay-z between Oct. 18 and Nov. 20–last Saturday–and follow clues to Bing Maps locations and real life places where text from the book was blown up bigger than life or layered onto a guitar, onto records in jukeboxes, or onto a 1980s Cadillac parked in front of a Run-DMC mural in Queens. The most dedicated followers could read the whole book for free weeks before it came out. Plus, anyone who unlocked a page online or in person (by texting a code located on the physical page) was entered to win that page signed by Jay-Z or tickets to a Jay-Z/Coldplay New Year’s Eve concert in Las Vegas.
Bing and Google in a Race for Search Features
(New York Times) — Edwin Perello discovered that Bing, the Microsoft search engine, could find addresses in his rural Indiana town when Google could not. Laura Michelson, an administrative assistant in San Francisco, was lured by Bing’s flight fare tracker. Paul Callan, a photography buff in Chicago, fell for Bing’s vivid background images.
Bing Dives Into Entertainment With New Search Vertical
(Mashable) — Microsoft’s search engine just got a whole lot more media-focused with the launch of Bing Entertainment, a new vertical centering on music, movies, TV and games. The goal behind the new destination at bing.com/entertainment is to make it easier to find what movie to watch, what music to listen to, what casual games to play: “spend less time searching for entertainment and more time doing the stuff you love.”
Microsoft To Google: We Search With Bing
(TG Daily) — Google ditches Windows. Hell breaks loose! Pink newspaper roils the Internets. Windows users cry, “D’oh!” I feel redonkulous for writing this, but I am a headline Slore and it is my job. So, Google, a known Microsoft uber-user (not), decides to ditch Windows because of security concerns.
Bing Goes To The Dogs, Thanks to Big Paws, Little Claws
by Kiara Ashanti
If you were to think of Microsoft inking a sponsorship or advertising deal, you’d probably envision them signing onto a major sporting event or collaborating with a large technology firm. Microsoft, after all, is an industry giant. But Rodney Dorival, owner of Big Paws, Little Claws, a Manhattan-based dog walking service, is proving once again that it’s possible for the little guy to swim with the big fish. He’s partnered with Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, on a campaign that runs through August.
“This shows that you can have a little company, a good idea and then walk into corporate America and make it happen,” said Dorival. “Bing loved our idea instantly.” Dorival’s company has been operating since 2007. He started it up after working part-time as a dog walker for a friend. It didn’t take long for him to move from part-time to full-time and start entertaining the idea of working for himself. “Many of my clients were really on my back to start my own business,” he said. “They were encouraging, as were my friends, but my mother really supported the idea and pushed me toward that direction.”
It’s a direction that Dorival certainly did not see himself in ten years ago. A graduate of Maxwell Vocational High School in Brooklyn, he began studying sound engineering at Jambox Studios. “I have a passion for hip-hop, so like many kids I thought about getting into the music business.”
Setting up a studio at home, Dorival began working with singers and rappers looking to cut demo tapes. “It worked for a while but I was just not fulfilled,” he explained. Leaving music behind, Dorival spent a few years at a New York marketing firm before cutbacks forced his resignation.
“After 9/11 advertising dollars began to dry up and the company could only keep me or the friend that had gotten me the job to begin with. He had been there longer and had gotten me the job, so I felt that it was only right that I resign.”
Given such loyalty to a friend, it is poetic that another friend would give him the part-time job that would lead to his greatest success. “I started first because I needed to bring in some income, but after a year I felt I had found my niche.”
Dorival built up a client base before starting Big Paws, Little Claws. At first he worked alone, serving 20 clients. Within a year he had a part-time walker, and later, a full-time employee. Today his staff fluctuates between two and six people. He has also expanded his service base, offering more than just dog and cat walking. “My vision is to really be a pet concierge service. We can help pet owners with anything they need: vet appointments, picking up their food, grooming appointments, anything they need at all. We work with dogs, cats, lizards, and birds.”
