The River

The personal professional blog of Pamela Parker -- musings on marketing, advertising, media and technology.

Pamela Parker

Mmmmm…

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It’s true. The lunch food here at Google was amazing. Baby green salad, maple glazed salmon, and delectable mixed vegetables. There were other options (portobello wellington, steak), but those were my selections. I could really eat my vegetables every day if they tasted like these.

Separately, Seth Godin blogs about the famous former Grateful Dead chef.

About the “show.” So far it’s pretty rudimentary but there are interesting tidbits here and there. Will either be writing about it for ClickZ or might post later here if it doesn’t gel into something that’s right for that audience.

Google “Factory Tour”

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Some are watching it on the Web, others will be at the Googleplex. Me, I’ll be among the latter. I’m trekking down to Mountain View in a few minutes.

Even though famed chef Charlie Ayers is leaving, I’m looking forward to eats on Google (hey, I’m nearly 8 months pregnant, give me a break), and, of course, I’m looking forward to hearing what execs have to say. Should be an interesting scene. Wonder if the new global communications head, Dan Senor, will be in attendance.

RSS Advertising Best Practices

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Seems people are beginning to learn enough about RSS advertising to share lessons learned and set forth best practices.

If anyone else knows of any such documents, please feel free to pass ’em along and I’ll aggregate here. Thanks in advance!

Goldstein on Arbitrage

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Seth Goldstein has begun a series of essays on arbitrage. I’ve heard him speak about this fascinating topic before — as it applies to Internet advertising, of course — but it’s great to read this all in one place. (Seth suggests printing out his blog entries, as he tends toward treatises rather than short posts.)

One section:

Every new search that emerges on the Internet creates its own ecology of algorithmic and sponsored results. The more obscure the search, typically, the less experience the engines have with covering the results smoothly with a common group of relevant advertisers…. Wittgenstein claims that “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.” (LW, PI, #19) and so despite the curious assortment of sponsors, there is a certain vitality that emerges from their unique combination. While Internet companies and their investors consider a query that returns no products or advertisers to be “dead” space, these moments are in fact the most life-affirming of all.

Call to Action

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I just talked to my fellow ClickZ columnist and friend Bryan Eisenberg (while his brother, Jeffrey, chimed in occasionally in the background). He shared that the latest book by the Brothers Eisenberg, Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results has been getting the respect it deserves.

It’s been hovering around the Amazon top 10 all of last week and this week, prompting the online retailer to order “thousands” more copies. A positive review (complete with a pan of the book’s cover) from guru Seth Godin has definitely helped propel book sales upwards.

It’s great to see that these guys — who are so smart about Web site conversions and so nice, to boot — get some acknowledgement from the wider world. We’ve recognized their genius for many years now, but it’s great to see others doing the same.

From a user review on Amazon.com:

Call to Action is a straight forward, no nonsense, no “fluff” book covering the do’s and don’t’s of website design and marketing. The book is written to be easily understood. I have already adopted many of Bryan’s points into my own website design and have seen almost immediate results. I doubt if there is a better book on the subject.

Bay to Breakers

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Baytobreakers
Like the Googlers, I took part (along with my invaluable support person, my husband, and a couple of friends) in the Bay to Breakers event this weekend. For me, the 12K wasn’t a run. It was an amble — and seeing as I’m 7+ months pregnant, I’m pretty darn proud I finished at that leisurely pace. Feet throbbed, back hurt… but I made it to the end and beyond. (Whose idea was it to put the MUNI shuttles a 1.5 mile walk from the finish line?)

Talk about a cultural experience. I couldn’t help but think that the more countercultural aspects of the event — lots of nudity or partial nudity, plenty of open containers on city streets — would never have flown in New York. I guess it’s still Free Love-ville around here, or at least that aspect of the culture raises its head now and then. It was great, though. Because I was toward the back of the very substantial pack, I got to witness some of the more, shall we say “colorful” elements. I didn’t catch the Google folks, but I did witness some interesting moments.

One of the more “dot-com” experiences occurred when we stumbled past the finish line. A race official stood on a platform with a bullhorn, telling people how to reach the shuttles, the concert, t-shirt pick-up and the like. His spiel on the t-shirts went something like this, “If you registered for the race, you can pick-up your t-shirts at the polo fields, but you’ll need your bib number. If you didn’t register, you can probably get a t-shirt on Craigslist in a couple of days. Heck, they’re probably already available on Craigslist.” How’s that for an endorsement?