Bytes · New Google Maps API - LongTail works - Metcalfe rewritten

• Official blog: Google Maps Mashups 2.0


• More BBC Free PR for big companies: MySpace 'passes 10m UK users'


• TechPresident: Don't believe the Long Tail strategy works... Ask your friends...
  

  Via U.S. News & World Report, we find out just how valuable the Long Tail strategy has become:
  
  The Internet is now an integral part of every candidate's fundraising effort, and the numbers are impressive. Obama led the field among Democrats in online fundraising in the first quarter, netting around $7 million over the Internet compared with Clinton's $4.2 million and Edwards's $3.3 million. Republican Mitt Romney reported $7.2 million in online donations in the first quarter. Second-quarter Internet cash totals are not yet in.
  
  The median online donation is usually low—the Obama campaign said 9 in 10 of its online donors gave $100 or less this year—so the big Internet dollars go only to candidates with wide appeal among the Internet-savvy. The Federal Election Commission limits allow personal contributions up to $2,300 per candidate for the primaries, and another $2,300 per candidate for the general election cycle. So campaigns would like those small Internet givers to give again, and again, and will pester them to do so; most candidate websites even offer an option for automated monthly giving to their campaign.
  
  






• Mark Cuban: Metcalfe's Law and Its Impact on Online Video:
  

  1. The more people that see content when it is originally "broadcast", regardless of the distribution medium, the more valuable the content.
  2. The greater the number of people that watch content simultaneously, the greater the emotional attachment of the viewer.
  3. The longer the period required for content to saturate viewer demand, the cheaper the cost of delivery.
  4. The shorter the period required to saturate demand, the more expensive the cost.
  5. The greater the number of content alternatives at any given point in time, the more expensive it is for any given piece of content to acquire an incremental viewer.

  · Metcalfe's law
  
  
• Nielsen has shifted prime metric from page view to time spent on the site, massively boosting sites like AOL's at the expense of Google. As Scott Karp explains:
  

  Google, meanwhile, drops to fifth in time spent, primarily because its search engine is focused on giving visitors quick answers and links for going elsewhere. By page views, Google ranks third.

  The problem is that the web is not a monolithic medium. Reading a blog, using instant messaging, and using web search are utterly different — the idea that one metric can be used as a yardstick to compare them is absurd on the face of it.
  
  

• First Search Marketing in the US Presidential Election Campaign: ClickZ reports that McCain is getting 'better bang for his buck':
  

  However in terms of visibility, McCain came out ahead, appearing prominently in searches for "stem cell research;" "pro-life;" "campaign finance," "electoral reform;" "ethics reform;" "government accountability;" "government reform;" "lobbyist;" "special interests;" "tort reform;" "DNC" and "RNC." Edwards' ads were highly visible only in results for searches on "Iraq" and "war in Iraq" ... candidates "are still really focusing on using search to solicit e-mail addresses and contributions." Therefore, many care only about targeting ads to keywords associated with issues that generate the most action for the least amount of money .. ads for Senator Barack Obama, whose campaign accounted for 4 percent of spending, appeared in searches for "Iraq" and "war in Iraq" .. 89 percent of voters using search engines to find election information have conducted searches on a relevant issue .. Democratic hopeful Senator Barack Obama was the most-searched candidate of all, prompting searches by over 50 percent of all people using search engines for election information, and 60 percent of Democrats in that group. Forty percent of all election searchers sought for information on Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, and about 57 percent of Democrats in that segment did. Thirty-seven percent of all search engine users searched for ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, while 51 percent of Republicans in that segment searched for the Republican candidate. About 23 percent of all searched for McCain, and 28 percent of Republicans searched on the Senator's name.

  Jonathan Mendes looks more at the Search Engine Election.
  

  In this digital election the most important and most targeted opportunity to reach voters exists in the same places it does in all other media. Paid advertising.

  There's another use which Adsense can be put to, PrezVid documented in April:
  

  Who considers whom a threat (and who’s a threat to no one)