AltaVista’s Own Gaffes Stranger than Anything The Register Can Make Up

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This is the first blog to the new, improved Traffick weblog. How can it be a weblog, you ask, if we’re not using blogger or some other “blog tool” to build it? Um, because we say it is?

To warn readers about the type of material they can expect, I’ve called this blog “Threads & Needles.” “Threads” represents the beauty and power of the hyperlinked world of Internet discussion; “needles” is a much more polite way of saying “rants.” Being a reformed rageoholic, I’ve decided that I am no longer allowed to rant (there is already one RageBoy), but I am allowed to “needle” my favorite Internet companies. Affectionately, you understand. Some of you (30-somethings mostly) may be interested to hear about the real inspiration for the term “needles”: a character played by Dave Thomas (whose network TV claim to fame today is an unfunny character on Grace Under Fire) back in the heady days of SCTV. “Bill Needle” was a very angry news commentator who was given a minute to rant about some issue. As Bill’s segment was shrunk from 60 seconds to 30, then 15, then 10, then 5, his rants became increasingly directed at his own network. If you see my blogs getting shorter and shorter, you’ll probably notice a higher and higher concentration of vitriol directed at the higher-ups (like my landlord, my bank, and the jerks who keep digging up my street).

I’ll get it started by needling an old favorite. Those who’ve been following the search engine scene for the past couple of years know that AltaVista has dropped off the radar screens of most Internet users. You also know that their various public relations blunders – the phantom ISP in the UK, etc. – contributed to the decline. It’s good to try new things, so it’s no shame that Raging Search flopped, but it’s a really bad idea to make up a service that doesn’t exist.

Fast forward to the present. Like many general-interest sites, AltaVista is now saddled with a large inventory of advertising that can’t sell at any price. Skyscrapers, banners, etc. are on special for 60 cents per thousand… or less. The natural conclusion is: if it’s this cheap, there is something wrong with it.

More promising is AltaVista’s keyword-based featured links. Advertisers can buy a broad search term like “electronics” and pay a low CPM rate to have this displayed every time someone searches for electronics.

What is particularly amazing is how AltaVista is going about selling this inventory. I’ve received four, count ’em, four, email solicitations from two different sales reps in the past ten days. I’ve never advertised on AltaVista. Never done business with them. So how did they decide it was OK to contact me? I’m advertising somewhere else. I’ve received these kinds of solicitations before: “I notice you’re bidding on the keyword ‘lemur’ at Overture.com, and thought you might be interested in…”

It feels awfully close to spam to me.

It also needs to be said, though, that spam works! I’m often cold-called by reps trying to sell some web service or another. This rarely works, but I do keep some of them in the back of my mind. Recently, another Internet company sent me a similar email about advertising rates, also noting that I was bidding on pay-per-click engines so therefore I might be interested. Because I had been planning to do business with them anyway, I got back to them and made an ad buy. And the prices on AltaVista’s inventory are so good, I would consider doing the same.

Now that we’ve established that spam works, can we now excuse AltaVista for this rinkydink move of collecting prospects by combing the ranks of pay-per-click advertisers? By no means! Companies who engage in such behavior know they’re eroding their own credibility for the future, and also know they’re eroding others’ ability to get your attention in the future. They do it anyway, because they need to get themselves over some kind of financial “hump.” But it’s no way to build a brand. Abusing the customer’s inbox is basically an admission that you’re not skilled or principled enough to figure out how to get customers’ permission legitimately. This Tragedy of the Dot Commons just keeps getting more tragic for AltaVista.

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