Posted by Mel Gray

Cue scene from The Departed

Frank Costello: [while eating crab] Do you know John Lennon?
Billy Costigan: Yeah, sure, he was the president before Lincoln.
Frank Costello: Lennon said, "I'm an artist. You give me a fucking tuba, I'll get you something out of it."
Billy Costigan: [sarcastically] Well I tell you Mr. Costello, I'd like to squeeze some fucking money out of it.
Frank Costello: Smart mouth. Too bad. If you'll indulge me...

This week's tool of the week is going to be a little different.  Instead of focusing on a particular piece of software we're  going to be looking at a trend I've noticed in web development that many emerging projects seem to be employing called Service Oriented Architechture (SOA). 

Wikipedia describes SOA as "an IT infrastructure which allows different applications to exchange data with one another as they participate in business processes. The aim is a loose coupling of services with operating systems, programming languages and other technologies which underly applications." 

The trend I'm noticing is that many "micro-services" are popping up that allow developers to integrate crucial "components" onto their own site through a common API (usually accessed via javascript). An offhand example of this type of micro-service is Disqus.

Disqus provides a comment system. If you have a web site, you can include a javascript helper that will magically give your users the ability to submit feedback for any given page. The advantage of this approach is obvious as it significantly decreases the amount of time it takes to develop and maintain a comment system.

So what right? Many of our more tech-savvy readers are surely familiar with dozens of other services that provide similar features. The move toward "the cloud" isn't exactly a new concept, so why spout out another piece of blog fodder about building sites/mashups in a distributed manner? Well my reply is simply: Pizza.

The other day I was watching The Departed for the umpteenth hundredth time and browsing the internet.  I came across a really cool ruby script that allows you to connect to the Domino's Pizza website and order a pizza.  All at the push of a button, with zero human interaction. This video will illustrate the end result of running such a script:

After watching the video I looked at my television and caught the following dialogue which could help put the idea I am going to try and convey into an SEO perspective:

Billy Costigan: Frank, how many of these guys have been with you long enough to be disgruntled, huh? Think about it. You don't pay much, you know. It's almost a fuckin' feudal enterprise. The question is, and this is the only question, who thinks that they can do what you do better than you?

The question that SEO's should be asking is: Who thinks that they can rank better for what you do better than you?

You don't have to put time into developing an international chain of Pizza franchises, but if you can rank sites (purely hypothetical for the sake of discussion) with keywords like 'pizza delivery' and help Domino's sell pizza, you could possibly make a fair amount of money.  Especially if you can help them reach sales figures like Papa John's.  I'm not a lawyer, so please don't take this as advice, but if someone helped me with a billion in sales, I'd let them keep whatever they could take as long as I got mine.

Billy Costigan: Hey, you fellas come from Providence?
Providence Gangster #2: Isn't any of your business where we come from, is it, now?
Billy Costigan: Fuckin' delivering cannolis or something?

All this talk about pizza is one thing, but what about something more realistic or diverse? 

Well there are plenty of great services out there that you can promote through the use of affiliate links.

37signals, is a really cool company that offers some really cool products.  SEOmoz uses their Campfire application  for group talks, link sharing, and internal company communication.  Being able to say something once to a room beats having to repeat yourself over and over again via IM.

37signals recently started an affiliate program where they offer users who promote their products up to $75 per customer referal.  Signing up is easy, you can do so here: https://affiliate.37signals.com/affiliate/

Once you sign up you get a nifty link like this one (WARNING THIS IS AN SEOMOZ AFFILIATE LINK.  YOU DON'T HAVE TO CLICK IT I'M PUTTING IT HERE AS AN EXAMPLE): http://www.campfireNOW.com/?referrer=SEOMOZ

A service like this offers far greater flexibility with keywords and could be much easier to rank for than "pizza delivery".  An added bonus is that Campfire (along with all 37signals products) comes with a REST API, that you can read about here: http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2007/09/tinder-campfire.html

With a little clever engineering, a developer could produce an entirely new niche product  based on the foundation and infrastructure that makes up Campfire.

Frank Costello: I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me. Years ago we had the church. That was only a way of saying - we had each other.

Developing apps on a Service Oriented Architechture doesn't always have to be about profit.  I think it is a natural evolution for software to be developed in this manner, especially when faced with issues such as scaling and the threat of net neutrality. 

The web has seen an explosion in the amount of people that use it on a day to day basis.  A lot of those people are technically inept and couldn't care less about how the internet works. They just care that it does.

Madolyn: Why is the last patient of the day always the hardest?
Billy Costigan: Because you're tired and you don't give a shit. It's not super-natural.

Developing "micro-applications" that serve niche purposes is a wise strategy for any software developer from both a technical and business angle.  Smaller is better, less is more.  Genius is doing a common thing uncommonly well.

Issues with branding, trademarks, and class warfare can all arise by incorporating these development tactics, so any input on these subjects is welcome as well.

I'll leave you with that and these questions:

    What micro-services (besides Twitter) are you currently using or are you insterested in? 
    Are you working on any type of SOA app? 
    Can you think of any SOA apps that you would like to see?
    Are you currently earning any type of income by ranking sites with affiliate links?
    Are you currently earning any type of income by ranking sites that provide or use white label services?
    Trickle-down theory in an information economy - What works? What doesn't?

Please share.

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Travel search site Kayak.com has announced the launch of a targeted display advertising platform. The platform was developed by SideStep.com, which Kayak acquired in December 2007.

Kayak says display advertisers will be able to target a variety of search criteria, similar to existing text ads offered through the Kayak Publisher Network. Examples of search criteria are:

• Destination
• Origination
• Trip dates
• Length of stay
• Specific airline/hotel/car brands and car type

Three ad sizes will be available, which are in line with IAB standards:

• 180x150 pixels
• 160x600 pixels
• 300x250 pixels

Kayak and its affiliates generate 200 million ad impressions per month on air, hotel, and car search results pages. Currently there are over 30,000 text placements from more than 2,000 brands on the Kayak Publisher Network.

"Our advertisers have repeatedly told us that display ads can communicate travel services in a way that text ads cannot," said Steve Hafner, Kayak.com co-founder and CEO. "Yet we know that some consumers dislike these ads and find them distracting. I believe we've found the right balance by allowing our registered users to suppress or view them, whichever they prefer."

Related Reading:
What Matters Most to Travel Search Marketers in 2008?
Online Advertising Shifting from Branding to Direct Response

People who play video games for long periods of time are not necessarily lonely nerds without social skills according to an Australian study.

The study by Victoria University psychology graduate Daniel Loton revealed that 15 percent of 621 adult respondents were flagged as "problem gamers" who spend more than 50 hours a week playing games.

read more

Yahoo! and Coupons Inc. are launching a mobile coupon platform. Coupons Inc. is a leading online coupon distribution network and has relationships with 800 brands. The mobile network will immediately be available to all brands within the network.

“We see mobile coupons as a natural extension of our leading digital marketing platform and a way to turn coupons into a strategic marketing vehicle that delivers value,” said Steve Boom, Senior Vice President, Mobile, Yahoo!. “Our global reach, leading position in mobile advertising and the ability to deliver the right offer to people, coupled with Coupons, Inc.’s leadership in coupons, creates a unique opportunity to define and catalyze the market for mobile coupon promotions. When consumers get a coupon they want it’s not seen as an ad – but a gift.”

While the mobile coupon market is relatively new, the strategy is expected to be a fruitful source of revenue for mobile publishers.Recent data from Hitwise shows that traffic to coupon websites is up 56% from 2007. Yahoo! and Coupon Inc. are hoping that translates to mobile.

“Coupons, Inc. has been innovating coupon technology for a decade. Mobile coupons are a logical next step in the industry’s evolution, and we continue our commitment to drive interactive coupons with our new mobile initiative,” said Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons, Inc. “By partnering with Yahoo!, we will extend our customers’ reach to a new generation of consumers — especially teens and young adults — in a medium that best fits their lifestyles.”

What do you think of this partnership? Are mobile coupons going to be lucrative? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading:
Local Search at the Pump

Just what we want to hear - bad news about the housing market, but this time online. Turns out online searches didn’t have as significant impact on homebuying or renting decisions as we may have hoped. That doesn’t necessarily mean real estate sites should pull back their budgets though.

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Google's behavioral targeting is an inevitability and, in one form, a current practice. People are aware of personalized results when logged into their accounts, and certainly retail sites are aware of what you're checking out. But a recent forum poster reports Google's apparent knowledge of what he was doing off-site.

And the thought of that is a little unnerving.

read more

Almost every imaginable product is available through eBay, but TV and radio ads will no longer appear on any list.  The company has closed its Media Marketplace program.

read more

U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) said that four computers in his office had been compromised in 2006 and that computers used by other members of Congress and by the House Foreign Affairs Committee also were hacked.

read more

Google Custom Search has created a new developer guide, which is now available at the Google Code site. The guide was built from scratch with a new organization, search box, and navigation. There's also more pictures to break up an otherwise monotonous document (what's useful isn't always what's exciting).

The new developer guide also digs into background information and complex information as well as makes suggestions to help you on your way.

With the new guide, users can now search across multiple APIs. Google Custom Search fuels the search on the Google Code website.