defined as: “a secret understanding between two or more persons to gain something illegally, to defraud another of his or her rights, or to appear as adversaries though in agreement”

If, a major search engine consistantly responded to large search advertisers complaints about organic search results of other web sites while ignoring complaints from non-advertisers and small advertisers, is it collusion?

The search engine gains ad dollars, the advertiser gains leads (or potential customers.) In many circumstances the third party may be offering an advertising service in competition to the search engine, which could raise additional anti-trust concerns.

Is the action illegal? Yes, if the consumer has been led to believe that organic listings are truly independent when in fact they are under the influence of advertisers. Is this not the same as any other publishing industry? Perhaps, but the lack of a history of enforcement does not make the illicit legal.

While search engines may claim not to endorse their search results, the existence of manual editing to boost their own service rankings and owned properties constitutes an endorsement. One can not selectively endorse one thing and claim ignorance on the remainder of the contents without clear lines of separation. Thus, any action at the behest of an advertiser may constitute an undisclosed endorsement.

What can a search engine do to avoid issues of collusion?

1) Firewall advertisers from organic listings. All advertisers must submit their complaints through the same channels as non-advertisers. Nothing can be done to prioritize the importance of the complaints.

2) Rely solely on user inputted ratings to remove low quality results.

Net Neutrality is about one thing — Cable TV based ISPs (Time Warner, Comcast, etc) trying to recover lost revenue from exiting cable video subscribers. For both cable television subscription services and telephone service (be it traditional or VoIP) the future looks bleak.

I used to watch a lot of video on demand from Amazon. That was until I realized a lot of the stuff I had been watching had made its way to Netflix on demand. Instead of paying $2 an episode now I’m paying $7 a month. $100 for an Apple TV box and now I’m watching all of this video on my 55″ Samsung LCD and surround sound system. That is a steal.

The reality is that bandwidth is a commodity. You can’t brand it or claim yours tastes better than the competition. If an ISP tries to throttle a traffic source it can be tunneled. If they try to throttle your bandwidth you can just switch to a new ISP. I would recommend short selling shares of those companies that will be on the losing end of this battle.

The future looks marvelous for Google and Apple (and perhaps Netflix.) The two tech behemoths own their own platforms and have a massive, and affluent, user base. Other companies like Microsoft and RIM could have had a piece of this pie but they suffered brain drains and simply do not have their shit together (congrats to Microsoft for buying Skype, smart move if they manage to avoid sodomizing it.)

Ironically despite finally reaching this point where your average joe is paying for their content instead of pirating it, the United States government has taken overreaching steps to crack down on piracy. These steps are so extraordinary that Napster, Youtube, and Bittorrent would have been snuffed out in their early days, and Sean Parker would be sitting in federal prison instead of being played by Justin Timberlake. That is sad, because innovation will be driven overseas. Imagine a world where we copy Chinese businesses instead of them copying us.

The net neutrality wars are going to be ugly and obnoxious. They will drain shareholder value that should have been paid out in dividends and instead place them in the pockets of high paid lawyers and lobbyists.

Irregardless of these battles that take place, I am certain on one outcome: within 5 years consumers will be able to view their favorite television shows and movies on any device they own, at any time, in any place, hassle free (75% of the way there now.) Streaming video advertising will gobble up far more ad dollars than traditional broadcast advertising. ABC, NBC, and CBS will be shells of what they once were. Many cable television networks will no longer exist. The internet will have done to video distribution what the internet did to print distribution, in a much shorter time frame than anyone expects. Video piracy will be dead in the US because no one wants to put the effort in.

As a web publisher solidifying your brand is going to be critical. If you come across well on video or have the budget to hire those that do, you will be able to survive SE algorithm shake ups. Increasingly when people look for stuff they will demand video content. That article you have an Indian rewrite from someone elses website, with Adsense ads plastered around it, that isn’t going to work anymore. People won’t want to put in the effort. And video advertising will pay enough that they don’t need to click contextual text ads.

As William Gibson says — “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” If you look at my “predictions” I actually just told you what is already true. Its just that in 5 years its going to be more true.

No surprise newspapers are struggling for cash! Someone is about 2 years too late: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/20/opinion/oe-felch20

I never got around to applying The Four Hour Work Week, but I have followed a few lessons from the book. Most specifically, eliminating distractions and “Become(ing) and Ignoramus.” (page 92)

For a moment lets just forget blog RSS feeds, forums, and CNBC — instead consider your daily personal contacts and work interruptions.

Step 1 — Create an “personal” e-mail address. Its brand new and no one even knows what it is.

Step 2 — Get a new “personal” phone line / number. Again, its brand new and no one knows it yet.

Step 3 — You have two options, either have an employee become your intermediary to filter out the garbage, or give out this personal contact information to only your most important contacts.

For example, a company that you do 5/6/7 figures of business with a month may qualify as high priority. A company that you used in the past does not. This also means from time to time you may need to create a new “personal” contact system.

Have two sets of business cards. If you go to a conference, give one to the people trying to sell you something. Give a second to the important people you need to contact. If you have met me, you know I do not even give out any business cards. I’ll take yours, and contact you on my own time.

Because my company is very tiny (in employee size) I do not have anyone filter my contact information for me. I am sure there are many people who are pissed that I answered their voice mail 2 months after they left it. Thats ok, because if I spent my time reading through every personal correspondence, there wouldn’t be much business left.

Ironically you will notice I have a personal contact email on this blog (as of the time I write this.) Your contact structure does not have to be limited to two tiers. It can be very beneficial to make it multi-channeled. As the business owner, if might be ok for your press contacts to have direct contact information. Or perhaps there is a more “casual” contact point that you can access after work that you know will never contain urgent news to break you away from family time.

Consider these ideas and build yourself a custom solution, if you haven’t already. As always, these aren’t rules; test things out and figure out what works for you.

Here is something funny for the weekend.

Before starting, this is not a post for or against Ron Paul. Rather, I am trying to point out a few things about demographics, something any web publisher and marketer should understand & study.

There has been a general representation, not only in the mainstream press, but also web sites such as Digg that Ron Paul has a very tiny, core group of supporters. These supporters are spamming polls, online and offline to give the illusion that he has a huge backing.

Judging by the comments I have read on various forums & blogs, as well as by statements I have seen on television, there is a perception that Ron Paul’s supporters are imaginary. More than a few bloggers feel that comments supporting Ron Paul are “auto-generated.” Earlier this year there were stories about Ron Paul supporters gaming Digg. Today Wired reported that someone was e-mail spamming messages in support of Ron Paul.

The reason why this appears to be “a Ron Paul fraud” is because the Republican polls are polling registered Republicans. Additionally, the groups polled are samples as tiny as 500 people. The most recent Zogby poll puts Ron Paul far behind at 3%. Thats not the 30%+ number we saw at the end of the last Republican debate.

Lets take a look at what groups can & do include Ron Paul supporters:

-Anti-War. None of the Republican candidates express any views but escalation.
-Pro-Small Government. Again, no other Republican candidates express interest in this, yet the Republican party pushed the concept very hard in the preceding decade.
-Libertarians. This group alone represents probably 2-3% of US voters, they would not be reflected in Republican polls.
-Democrats. Watch a debate. Ron Paul reflects the anti-war position as strongly as the further left Democratic candidates. Democrats watching a Republican debate will either vote for Ron Paul or no one at all.
-Crazy People. People who believe they don’t have to pay taxes, conspiracy theorists, etc. This group is showing support for Ron Paul.
-The Disillusioned & Non-voting. This group can include all of the previous groups. Only about half of Americans who can vote do.

Add all these groups together, and you have a very significant audience. This is far from an illusion fraud created by a tiny, core group of supporters. Certainly you will have rogue individuals too stupid to understand their attempts at gaining influence will actually destroy themselves and damage the candidates they allegedly support.

No matter what market you are involved in, do not buy into the distracting noise and well worn theories. Unlike politics, being #2,#,#4, or even #15 can net you a fortune. Go after the under-represented niches, no matter how loony or lazy they may appear (you may well find that this is a bonus, not a detraction.)

Politics makes for a great study in the dark arts of social engineering and human manipulation. Everything you want to learn about building a fanatical group of followers can be found here — if your not too busy buying in to the stories yourself.

Think that buying The Secret was a ripoff? Check out this massive, multi-billion dollar scam:

While fringe sources pointed out ethanol’s economic problems years ago, the mainstream has finally figured it out. A very good article was recently published at Rolling Stone — Ethanol Hurts the Environment And Is One of America’s Biggest Political Boondoggles. I recommend you read it. With a Presidential election coming up the truth needs to be known.

The energy policy of the United States is not just an issue for US citizens. Jeff Goodell at Rolling Stone writes — “Our current ethanol production represents only 3.5 percent of our gasoline consumption — yet it consumes twenty percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, causing the price of corn to double in the last two years and raising the threat of hunger in the Third World.” In January The Washington Post published an article about the impact corn prices are having on Mexico’s poor. (President Bush wants US ethanol consumption increased 5x.)

Does any one other than corn farmers think this is a good idea?

The first time I saw Google Maps I was amazed. Between the fancy AJAX interface and high resolution satellite imagery hours vanished toward what felt like minutes.

Last night I took a look at Microsoft’s Live.com Maps. It seems they’ve been doing some updating.

The pictures below speak for themselves, and I’m not even including the in-browser 3D maps (yes I know Google Earth does the same.)

Google Maps (Click text for external link, images for zoomed jpg)

Microsoft Maps, Ariel view 1

Microsoft Maps, Ariel view 2

…

Still not impressed?

What if you want to see what the other side of the building looks like? Not a problem — Microsoft offers north, south, east, and west views.

To be fair, Live.com maps does not have footage for the entire United States. Some areas stink, still stuck with grainy B&W ariel images. However, this is hardly limited to major US cities. I was able to see my old small hometown in Wisconsin, the garden behind the house I grew up in clearly visible. Perhaps the demise of Bill Gates and his company has been exagerated.

Besides dropping eight figures on advertising this year Ask.com has had a little bit of a redesign. They added a wallpaper feature, one of which is polka dots. No joke.

I was shocked to see some of the nastiest young actresses I posted about on WickedFire in March end up on the Maxim Hot 100 list. Beauty is only skin or bone deep, and make up combined with Photoshop does a good job at enforcing that. Unfortunately most of these girls are coked out and pretty damn ugly.

I don’t think I’m going to be alone here wondering how in the hell Lindsay Lohan made #1. Does Maxim Magazine auction off their sexiest women spots?