I’m a start-up founder just like many of you, and there are days when I wonder if I’m the only one who feels, acts and thinks the way I do. But there are others that have gone before, and you might be surprised to see which tech founder you are most like. Take our quiz and find out your answer to the question: What tech entrepreneur are you most like?

Click here to take the quiz

(UPDATE: I’m going to ask you for an email address at the end of the process. I wanted to warn you up front so that I don’t catch you off guard!)

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One of the things that we’re working on at Pure Incubation is launching a variety of software tools for publishers aimed at helping them solve their most crucial business issues. (If you want to know more about those publishing problem areas, read this post.) We’re doing this through our Sauce Technology business unit, and today I want to introduce you to a specific application - Quiz Sauce.

The quiz above was built using the application - give it a whirl and let me know what you think. Here’s the link to take the quiz in case you missed it above - What tech entrepreneur are you most like?

I’ve said it a ton of times already, as have many others in the industry – traditional publishing models are in trouble. Someone asked me this week what I think can fix publishing, and although there are some parts of the broken industry that are going to be difficult to repair, I do think that there are three major things that would help.

First, publishing is broken because media and publishing companies don’t have a way to effectively account for their audience. In one traditional publishing model, specifically in the B2B controlled circulation print publishing world, publications require subscribers to fill out a qualification form. Qualification forms are long, multi-point questionnaires that ask a series of data points that help the magazine figure out if the subscriber is a qualified recipient of the magazine. (See an example here) Basically, to qualify to receive a print magazine for free, a subscriber would fill out this long form that asked various demographic questions, as well as information about the subscriber’s budgets, number of sites that they had purchasing power over, and how many people they influenced at their job, etc. Those forms are then used to determine who qualifies to receive a free subscription of the magazine. If the subscriber has enough purchasing power, they get the magazine. The publisher is then able to use this data to provide a subscriber profile to potential advertisers, who then decide to run ads in the magazine based on the demographic profile of the subscribers who are receiving that magazine. All of which was qualified and audited based on the qualification forms.

As the online shift has happened, things have changed. Where the Internet allows for audience measurement (IAB Guidelines [PDF]) in a way that print publishing never did, it isn’t necessarily measuring the things that are going to help publishers succeed. While the Internet allows for a great deal of measurement, the measurement is in metrics such as page views, time spent, number of page views and the like. These data points are valuable to advertisers, but don’t provide any information into the specifics of the audience that is visiting that site. So a site like CleanRooms, (just as an example, not to pick on that site specifically), which is micro-targeted to people who care about contamination control technology, can show its advertisers that its website was visited x number of times in June, but can’t provide details on exactly who it was that visited the site. Advertisers know the reach of their message, but they can’t be sure of the targeting.

This has caused a weird content dilemma. Instead of focusing on creating the content that will serve their audience specifically, publishers have begun creating content that will attract the MOST readers, because they are measured by page views instead of audience specifics. This is the first thing that has to change online. The model that the qualified magazines used where they were able to provide specific data on exactly who is visiting their site – the audience demographics – is essential. This is particularly an issue with B2B publishing where the goal has always been to reach the right audience, not necessarily the broadest audience. (This is less of an issue in consumer publishing where the goal was to reach the largest number of possible people.)

The only way to overcome this challenge is for publishers to move this audience development model online – so that they are capturing details and data about their audience. Not only is it vital that they are able to prove exactly who their audience is, but the ability to capture their contact information and permission to continue to contact them in the future is also vital. It is with that contact data and permission, just as it was when publishers were able to send subscribers print magazines, that the publishers are going to be able to build their audience, get them to build affinity and be an effective media partner to advertisers.

The second issue is the way that advertising is being as audiences move from print to online. With the print publication, advertisers were content to know that their message was being read, reviewed or at least seen by the right audience. With the move to online, advertisers are looking for measurability. Google has changed the online media industry not only by providing a low-cost online advertising channel for marketers, and not only by allowing publishers to generate simple revenue by running advertising on their sites, but also by pioneering the idea of return-on-investment (ROI) and pay-for-performance media. No longer are advertisers satisfied to buy advertising on the same basis as they did in print, just to reach a specific audience demographic. (Remember, there’s some question as to whether online sites are reaching the same demographic that their print counterpoints were reaching.) Advertisers are now flocking to ROI-based advertising channels like search marketing and lead generation. The issue is that publishers are having a difficult time figuring out how to offer these types of programs to their advertisers, but they have to figure this out or else they are going to be in deep, deep trouble.

Finally, the nature of content has changed entirely. In the traditional publishing model, media companies hired content producers who wrote fabulous content that was pushed out to subscribers via their print publications on a periodic basis. With the launch of the Internet, the publishers were able to publish to a site that the audience could come back to on their schedule – that was revolutionary at the time. But now, things have changed to an even larger degree. No longer are the media companies and publishers the sole creators of content – not by a long shot. Now there are new media companies with content producers, bloggers who are self-publishing content, and a whole host of user-generated content channels, such as social networks, reviews sites and the like. On top of that, all of the companies that relied for years on the publishers to get the message out about their products have become publishers. They have websites, but they also create and distribute content in an incredibly wide variety of formats.

Publishers who are coming from the traditional model are fighting this change. They make the argument that traditional journalism, although it’s going through a huge decline, is one of the foundations of our society and without it, we are going to suffer. It might be. And we might suffer. But the truth is that consumers of content – the subscribers of the past – want lots of different types of content (PDF), and they want to get their content from a variety of sources.

Here’s a fictional, but realistic example. A new virtualization server is being released by Dell. A consumer hears about it because there is a news story on his favorite technology Web site. He wants to know more, so he goes hunting for content. That publication only has that one article, but he doesn’t know that; he follows the links in the article to find additional information. On that publication’s site, he reads an old story about another company that has a virtualization server, then a round-up of virtualization servers, both of which were linked to in the article. He clicks on a link to a white paper (written by Dell, hosted on the publication’s web site), and reads that. But that’s not really all the information he wants – he wants more information on this new virtualization server. So he clicks the link to the press release from Dell. At the bottom of the press release is a link to the page on the Dell website that has more information – so he goes there. The Dell Website has a whole bunch of information on the server, including pictures, a video and a white paper about the benefits of virtualization in an insurance company, which happens to be the industry that the consumer is in, so he reads and watches all that content. After reading all the information available on Dell’s site, the consumer goes to Slashdot to see if anything has been written about the new server, and then goes to Google where he types “Dell virtualization reviews” and goes to five sites that feature reviews from IT pros that have used other Dell virtualization servers in the past. He then gets back to work, fairly satisfied with the information that he’s read.

In the old model, publishers don’t really believe that this is the way things work. They don’t believe that a consumer of content reads any information from a vendor and believes it. But the truth is, content consumers are looking for multiple angles on the same topic. They want to know what the journalist thinks and will give that information great weight, but they also want to know what the vendor says about their own product, and what their peers have to say. Just check out the graphic below, from the Enquiro Business to Business survey 2007 (registration required) – about the types of content that are involved in and influence the B2B buying process. Content from all sources isn’t only viable, it’s necessary and highly influential. Publishers, many of which have a large number of livelihoods tied up in the traditional publishing model, aren’t totally willing to let go of their long-held beliefs to embrace an online strategy that includes content from a wide array of sources. But they must if they want to retain their audience and subscribers.

These are the problems with publishing that I see – 1) the need for effective audience development methodologies; 2) the ability to support ROI-based advertising programs and; 3) the diversification of content types to solve all the needs and wants of the core audience.

Without embracing these three elements, traditional publishers are doomed. But if publishers can figure these things out, it might just save publishing.

Photo of rusty printing press by anyjazz65

I give a lot of attention to performance-based advertising formats such as search and lead generation. While I’m bullish on both at all times, I especially think that they are easier to buy and defend in a bad economy. Today Fred Wilson over at A VC wrote this post about a comScore white paper that described the lift that is generated by display advertising (banners). This article is definitely worth a read.

Banners definitely provide a positive benefit for advertisers. (And this research certainly proves it.) Like television, billboards and radio advertising, they defintely promote brand awareness, and, based on this study, a lift in sales. But the issue still remains that without a research study like this one running to measure the effectiveness of a specific banner, it is impossible to measure its ROI. And in this economy, it doesn’t matter how many studies like these are released, marketers are going to be looking for 1-to-1, measurable ROI.

Photo by Travis Isaacs

We’ve been listening to Christmas tunes this week in the office, primarily tuning into a local FM radio station’s online stream (Oldies 103.3). What plays is exactly the same thing that plays on the radio station, same music, same commentary, same ads. There is also a browser window that pops up with the radio player, and that window is surrounded by ads.

For anyone that listens to music online using some of the services that were created specifically for an Internet audience (Pandora, for example), where music streams continuously, is not interrupted by advertising and allows for greater control and customization over what plays, this type of online music experience is very rudimentary. The AM and FM stations that are broadcasting over the Internet (at least the ones that I have experienced) have not done anything to adopt any Internet or performance-based revenue models. And in this, they have missed a huge opportunity.

Pandora and other Internet-only radio services are burdened by a royalty structure that, until earlier this year, AM and FM stations didn’t face. According to an article from the Washington Post:

“Royalties for Internet radio differ greatly from its satellite and terrestrial counterparts. Internet companies 0.000762 of a cent per song, per listener. Satellite radio companies pay a percentage of their revenue. Under copyright laws, land-based radio stations, traditional AM and FM radio, pay nothing.”

But the radio stations, even with this freedom, did not take advantage of the shift in media dollars to performance-based models. Now that they will also have to pay royalties for online play, I believe that they will live to regret their lack of innovation when they had the chance.

I joined Twitter for the first time in October 2007. My journey using the tool hasn’t always been smooth, as I’ve documented here, here and here. But over time, Twitter has become increasingly useful to me in my business and personal life. Last week, I started using TweetDeck, thanks to a recommendation from @jmeserve, and it has changed my Twitter life.

TweetDeck provides a clean and easy-to-use interface that allows me to read the stream of posts from my followers, as well as to monitor my @replies and direct messages all in one pane. More importantly, TweetDeck also allows me to create sub-groups of followers that I want to monitor differently (or more closely). This was a problem that I originally tried to solve by creating a second Twitter account, but I like TweetDeck’s solution so much better. Perhaps the coolest feature of TweetDeck is the TwitScoop interface, which shows me “what’s buzzing right now” using a tag cloud that highlights the topics that are getting the most buzz on Twitter at any given moment. Today I found out about the Chicago Tribune filing for bankruptcy, the fighter jet crash in San Diego, and the new Blackbird browser all from using this feature.

The best thing about TweetDeck, however, is how quickly it has made me more effective at using Twitter. Just today, I spotted a post from @garyvee in real-time, responded quickly, and got a fantastic plug back that resulted in 100 new followers in about 10 minutes. (See the string of messages, along with a screenshot of the interface below.)

Moral of the story? TweetDeck is a powerful business tool, and I highly recommend it. If you’re not using Twitter yet, get started today here and follow me at @mchang16.

And here’s the screen of TweetDeck - it’s a bit hard to see because the screenshot shrunk when it was posted, but the first column is the full feed of all the people I follow, the second column is my “must reads,” the third column is the TwitScoop and off to the right is my @replies.

With the economy in the tank, there are a lot of people who are understandably worried about their businesses and their jobs. Companies that rely on marketing for revenue are especially concerned; historically, marketing budgets are among the first to be cut when there is a downturn. In the dotcom bust early this century, the slicing of marketing budgets directly contributed to the demise of several publications, including one that I worked for at the time.

I have said this before, and I will say it again now - if you are a media company that relies on advertising for revenue, you need to start offering a performance-based, ROI-based media option today.

If you don’t believe me, let’s look to someone who knows something about online advertising - Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Google just announced their earnings for the third quarter of 2008, and in the press release, Schmidt said this:

“The measurability and ROI of search-based advertising remain key assets for Google.”

Measurablility and ROI-based marketing programs are what are going to be the key assets to get Google through the hard time. I say, why not follow the leader?

My latest article has just been posted on The Industry Standard - Five ways media companies can take advantage of the shift to performance-based media.

With the markets down 30% year-to-date and nations around the world joining the U.S. in an economic downward spiral, it might feel like anything related to the economy or spending money is bad news. But there are bright sides to any situation if you look at it from a different perspective, and this situation is no exception.

When the economy dips, and companies take a hit, one of their first budgets to be cut is often the marketing budget. Marketing can feel like unnecessary spending for businesses, and it’s easy to cut one month and then quickly pick up the next month again when the company is doing better.

During the dotcom bust of the early 2000’s, I was working for Publish magazine, a trade magazine/Website focused on “Internet communication.” That magazine, like many others (including The industry Standard) folded due to the bad economy and the cut that IT companies were making to their marketing budgets.

But those were the days before performance-based media. Google, the leader (and pioneer) of PPC and performance-based advertising, launched its AdSense program in October 2000, but it didn’t gain traction until 2002. At that time, marketing budgets were easy to cut because marketing execs couldn’t prove ROI on the money they were spending. But today, when $1 out is easily measured to x dollars back, I believe that companies that provide performance-based advertising options will be insulated (a bit) from the downturn.

This isn’t to say that companies will be entirely shielded. But when some amount of revenue is easily tied back to a smaller amount of spending, companies will not be inclined to cut that spending.

Dollar bill by reubenaingber

Just saw a story this morning about Carat’s advertising outlook for 2009. Even though they are revising their forecast down to reflect the weak economy, they are raising their forecast for online advertising from 23.3% to 23.7% in 2008. For 2009, they are predicting that online advertising will grow 18.6%, vs. earlier estimates of 17.8% growth.

The most interesting bit in the article, however, is this:

[Jerry Buhlmann, CEO of Aegis Media] said the growth in online’s ad spending share has less to do with the growth of consumer use of online media, and more to do with a secular shift within the advertising industry that is driving marketers and agencies toward media that deliver measurable returns on advertising investments.

“With search now central to the planning and execution of any campaign, online media brings a greater level of accountability not just to itself but to TV, print and other forms of advertising,” he said. “This is why we are predicting further strong growth for internet, even when advertisers are cautious in many of the other sectors.” (bold and italics mine)

This shift to performance-based media, sometimes called ROI advertising, is going to continue until most (if not all) advertising is based on performance metrics. Not only is search advertising going to continue its phenomenal growth in leading this sector, but lead generation is going to continue to grow quickly. Joining them will be other media that traditionally have not been measured but will move in that direction, including video and even print.

Marketers have always headed in the direction of measurable media programs. Just think of the 1-800 numbers that can be traced back to specific ads. With money tight, even more dollars will be adjusted to go to these programs that can prove they are worth the money they cost to run.

Photo by aussiegall

Google’s stock price is dropping, and people are freaking out. Yesterday’s stock price drop was in response to a recent report from Comscore indicating that January 2008 showed only flat growth year-over-year versus a 25% increase in Q4. This apparently is the result of lower click-through rates on paid search ads, and people are worried that this means that Google is exposed to a slowdown if there is a recession in the U.S.

The near-panic is somewhat understandable considering that the overall U.S. economy isn’t doing all that great, the tech folks are scared of another bubble, Microsoft is talking about taking over Google, Apple’s stock is dipping, and everyone is looking for someone - anyone - to believe in. Google has been the obvious choice for a long time, and no one wants the tech darling to falter.

But the thing that I take issue with is the notion that this decrease in clicks is a result of consumers clicking less because of a coming recession. These numbers from Hitwise show that there has been no decrease in overall search traffic to shopping sites - meaning that consumers are still clicking.

And if consumers are still clicking on search links, why would they suddenly not be clicking on paid search ads? Could this be because consumers suddenly have become more discerning about what is a “paid” result vs. what is a “organic” result? No way.

My question for Google would be about how much of this decline comes from the dip in clicks on AdSense partner sites. My bet is that the clickthrough rates have dipped significantly on partner pages. Why? Primarily because of the click fraud prevention that Google has been implementing, as well as the “accidental clicking” measures that Google took back in November.

Remember, this was the second change that Google made to its ads; the company first changed the paid results on its main search pages in April, a move that many advertisers said led to a decline in the number of clicks, but not in the amount of revenue that they were earning.

And this might just be the bottom line. If there is no growth in the number of clicks, but revenue is growing, Google may have figured out a way to increase ROI for advertisers. Like this Businessweek article says, we’ll have to wait for earnings in April to find out for sure.

Search engine optimization or SEO is the practice of trying to get your Web site to appear higher in a search engine’s organic search results for the keywords for which you want to be listed. The idea is that if someone is searching for a term that is related to your business, you want to be listed at the top of the search results page because that person will be more likely to click on your listing and come to your Web site. Organic search results are the “natural” search results, or the listings that are free. More about organic vs. paid listings below.

There are many factors that contribute to where sites are listed in organic search results - the combination of these factors is called the “algorithm.” Only some of these factors can be impacted with SEO tactics:

• Domain name - If your keywords are listed in your URL, you’ll have a better chance of being ranked higher in the search results for those terms.
• Duration - The longer your site has existed, the higher you’ll be ranked.
• Content - If you have high-quality content on your Web site, and the content matches the keywords for which you’re trying to rank, you’ll have better luck getting listed. It’s also beneficial if your site has frequently updated content.
• Metadata - This is data that allows you to describe your Web site with a title, description and keywords. Metadata sits behind the scenes on your Web page and plays a factor in organic search results.
• Incoming links - If your site has a number of other sites pointing to it, the search algorithms will determine that it’s of higher value and will list it higher in the search results. You will get an even bigger benefit from incoming links if the text that links to you contains the keywords for which you’re trying to rank.

SEO may sound like a relatively simple concept, but there are SEO experts who execute these tactics full-time and trust me - it’s more complex and difficult than it sounds. This post is just meant to be a starting definition of the term, and not a how-to or training guide in any way. For that info, follow the resources links below.

One quick comment about organic vs. paid search listings: All the various search engines display both free and paid listings on their search results pages. For example, if you type the term “SEO” into Google, the results that you get back will be a combination of organic (or natural) search results and paid search results. The screenshot below has the paid search results areas circled in red.

Let me say again that SEO can be fairly complicated and I am just scratching the surface with this definition. I definitely recommend checking out some of these additional SEO resources:

• Wikipedia’s SEO definition
• SEO Chat - articles and insight into SEO
• Search Engine Strategies - Conference series that covers SEO in great depth
• Search Engine Watch