Gone are the days when the Internet was for checking email or searching for the meaning of the word “doppelganger”. Now booking vacations, paying bills and shopping are every day online activities for most people. With such an abundance of things to do on the Internet, many companies find themselves challenged to keep their customers interested and engaged.

One of the new and cool things you can do online that’s near and dear to me personally is watch videos. And I don’t just mean YouTube. More and more people (me being one of them) are developing an appetite for watching full-length movies and/or TV shows online. Advertisers are interested in online video too, hoping that these users will provide an engaged audience for their marketing messages.

Online video sites have delivered promising stats recently. For example, Netflix’s WatchNow, which allows subscribers to any Netflix plan to watch full-length movies and TV episodes online from their collection, had 69% more people using the service this quarter as compared to last quarter. Veoh.com, which allows users to view and share short YouTube-like videos as well as stream full-length TV show episodes, has grown from just under 1.5M Unique Visitors one year ago to over 6M in February (although their traffic has likely declined due to the recent writers’ strike). Barely out of its beta phase, the new kid on the block, Hulu.com, offers both full-length movies and TV shows including the most recent in-season episodes. Despite its newness it has already started gaining traction.

With video becoming an interesting and engaging activity online, everyone is trying to capitalize. Take telecommunications providers for example. Most of them were in business long before the Internet existed and many of us rely on them for such necessary services as our home phone line, cable TV and broadband Internet. Our neighborhood Telcos have since gone beyond mere service providers by building and maintaining customer-centric portals (e.g. myembarq.com or comcast.net). Driving engagement on these portals by offering video viewing (as well as news, email and other activities) also brings Telcos a piece of the ad revenue pie – as long as they can get their customers there.

So are their attempts working? Virtually all customer portals currently offer short news videos and movie trailers but that hasn’t been enough to generate interest yet.

Only 10% of Comcast.net visitors also go to its videos section, and the numbers are even lower for other Telco providers. User-generated content has proven difficult to achieve as well. Comcast tried it with Ziddio.com which only attracted 0.2% of Comcast.net traffic in February.

On the other hand, an emerging success story that has effectively leveraged increased interest in watching TV online is Comcast’s Fancast service. Fancast.com successfully integrates content like OnDemand listings and movie trailers with the ability to watch free full-length episodes of popular TV shows.

Judging by recent traffic this approach appears to be working. The number of fancast.com Unique Visitors has nearly quadrupled since November.

Online video is clearly attracting consumer attention. However the question remains as to which providers will capitalize on the trend before watching TV & movies online becomes as common as checking email. Can portal sites become “the place to watch online video”? This story should be one to watch in the future. Stay tuned.

This is the time of year that visions of sugarplums turn to scary thoughts about waistlines. My gym is currently overflowing with loud (and sweaty) people hoping to be among the “biggest losers” in the contest of the month.

For the past decade, the SUBWAY® restaurant chain has tried to stand out in the crowded fast-food market by striking a low-fat eating chord with consumers. SUBWAY, is celebrating “10 years of keeping it off” featuring spokesman Jared Fogle, who lost more than 200 pounds and his “fat pants” by exercising and eating at SUBWAY. On the 10th anniversary of the campaign and the new “Tour de Pants”, I wonder: has SUBWAY’s message resonated with consumers?

In January, traffic to Subway.com jumped to more than 500,000 unique visitors, making it one of the top 3,500 sites on the Internet. People are clearly interested in the restaurant. One glance at Compete’s Search Analytics data shows that some of Subway’s online visitors are interested in the nutritional information of the SUBWAY menu.

• “Subway nutrition” drives 2% of search referrals to subway.com.
• In contrast, the top 5 searches for Taco Bell and Quiznos have nothing to do with nutrition.
• Nutritional searches aren’t uncommon among rival fast-food sites. The keyword “McDonald’s nutrition” drives 3% of search referrals to McDonalds.com. “Wendys nutrition” also drives 2.8% of search referrals to Wendys.com, although it isn’t a top-5 keyword.

People are interested in the nutritional information of SUBWAY food. But that finding by itself isn’t a clear signal that SUBWAY’s marketing approach is resonating. Does SUBWAY attract people interested in diet and fitness in general? Better than fast-food chain rivals?

Compete data shows that approximately one out of 10 online consumers is a diet, beauty and fitness enthusiast, visiting sites like Weightwatchers and BallyFitness.

• These diet/beauty/nutrition enthusiasts were three times more likely to visit SUBWAY.com in January than the average online consumer.
• They are five times more likely to visit Subwayfreshbuzz.com. Visitors to this SUBWAY site can enter to be in a commercial with Jared, play the “Pants Dance,” and submit their own weight loss stories.
• SUBWAY’s “fresh buzz” site tops more than 25 fast-food rivals in attracting this desired segment.

SUBWAY is a national sponsor of the American Heart Association’s Heart Walks and is helping to promote the non-profit Jared Foundation online. Thanks, Jared and SUBWAY, for reminding us to make healthy lifestyle choices. It’s an important message that doesn’t seem to be falling on deaf ears.

Toyota is closing on Chevrolet as the top brand in the US automotive market. Can Toyota’s web site be contributing to their success? Based on Compete’s Website Engagement Study, the answer is yes.

A look at traffic shows that Toyota was consistently ahead of Chevrolet in the number of people visiting their site until the October Malibu launch. The heavy marketing push for Malibu drove traffic increases of 30% and more and Chevrolet.com exceeded 2 million unique visitors for three months in a row, until January, when Toyota reversed a downtrend and again surpassed Chevy.

What does this mean?
People visiting the Chevrolet site are 37% less likely to visit one of the four key online shopping tools than the Toyota site visitors.

Why is that important?
Compete data shows that those who purchased a vehicle were twice as likely to use a shopping tool on an OEM site.

What is causing the difference?
In a complex industry like automobiles there are a myriad of forces at work that contribute to the online behavior of consumers researching and shopping for cars. Some of the suspects are: the source of traffic, overall marketing efforts, website construction and navigation, consumer targeting, and of course the brand and product preferences of consumers.

Thank you for all the well-wishes following the announcement that Compete was acquired by TNS. In a recent post, we hinted that the year was about to get even more exciting for Compete!

Earlier today it was announced that Compete is becoming part of a new entity within TNS called TNS media, alongside TNS Media Intelligence, TNS Media Research and Cymfony. Dean DeBiase has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of TNS media, overseeing all North American operating units. You can click here to read the press announcement that went over the wire this morning.

With today’s announcement we’re pushing the boundaries of digital research and media measurement capabilities. Global clients and partners will have one stop shopping for comprehensive insights into consumers’ online and offline behavior and attitudes. We already had the most clickstream data in the industry and now the TNS consumer panels extend our advantage over the other digital research companies. Stay tuned for new product announcements that will rock the foundations of marketing with innovative new digital intelligence.

From the start, the Compete vision has always been to become the number one digital intelligence company in the world. TNS has tens of thousands of clients across 80 countries. That’s a nice global platform to be a part of.

We’re just 7 days away from the SES NY the next Search Engine Strategies conference. The show runs from March 17-20th in New York City, and what better way to celebrate than to interview Matt McGowan, Vice President of Marketing for Incisive Media’s Interactive division? Matt is spending more and more time taking properties like ClickZ and Search Engine Watch global, so he is rapidly acquiring a great sense for how international brands are thinking about SEM and SEO. Read on to hear how search marketing differs from country to country and what kinds of challenges and opportunities this poses.

If you’re interested in meeting Matt in person, come to SES next week. As further enticement, here is a code you can use to get a discount, courtesy of Compete (20SPKRGUST – 20% off when you register online). Jeremy Crane, our head of search, and I will be speaking at the conference; come by and see us at booth 102.

Share with us the reverse chronological order of your career and how it led you to be one of the key guys at Incisive Media.

I recently gave a run down here that said let me give you a little more detail…

I have been with Incisive Media for about two years now as the VP of Marketing for the Interactive Division, responsible primarily for the 10 year old Interactive News and Search Marketing sites, ClickZ.com and SearchEngineWatch.com and their subsequent event series ClickZ Events and Search Engine Strategies.

Prior to Incisive, I was instrumental in growing the online auction house, PropertyRoom.com, to an Internet Retailer 400 company. As the VP of Sales and Marketing, I ensured that there was always enough product for sale on the site, gathered via a very unique supply chain of Government and Law Enforcement found, lost, stolen and surplus property relationships and more than enough customers bidding on it. Yes, we engaged Search Marketing techniques, in addition to e-mail, public relations and other more traditional vehicles.

Earlier on in my career I worked for Charles Schwab & Co and Pearson Plc and I have a MBA from the University of Oxford.

You’ve got a great vantage point on SEM and SEO globally. What are the big trends you see for the next few years?

With the adoption of Blended Search behind us, there are quite a few trends developing that have yet to fully play out…

1. Blended Search will continue to evolve – the only guarantee is that SERPs will continue to change as the Search Engine’s (SE) learn to include more relevant information on them.
2. Social Media will continue flourish – the majority of web surfers start their online experience at the major Search Engines, that said more and more are heading directly to the MySpace’s and Facebook’s of the world.
3. Mobile Search is a massive opportunity – there are more mobile devices than computers out there. As wireless technologies evolve people may forgo the computer. This is partly what the Cloud Computing phenomenon is all about.
4. Analytics will be key – test, test, test… decision makers will increasingly go to the data to make decisions. The era of the thumb in the air approach to decision making is on its way out.

How would you describe the growth of SES in Europe? How is it evolving?

As expected. The Search Marketing industry is growing at a faster pace in Europe than it is here in the States.

Our SES London Conference and Expo almost doubled in size last year, from about 1,200 delegates to over 2,400. Now in its 9th year, it is now firmly positioned as the premier Search Marketing Conference and Exposition in Europe.

This past January we kicked off our continental European SES Forums, now in their 3rd year, with SES Paris. With 250 people in attendance we have constructed the SES Forum events to be more about intimate learning and networking. Delegates will find each event offers a relatively equal education on Paid Search (known in Europe as SEM) and Organic Search (know as SEO) in their local language, no exposition hall and networking events around sit-down lunches and evening cocktails.

SES Paris received a large amount of local praise and support, both the quality content and the quality of the delegates exceeded expectations, and we are now planning similar forums in Hamburg and Milan for later this year.

Let’s also not forget that we also hold a SES Tokyo forum and we plan to announce addition events in other parts of the world shortly. Stay tuned!

Since SES now operates in multiple countries, what are the ways you engage the local search communities in those respective countries?

Launching a product or service in a foreign country is no easy task and over the last few years we have been operating abroad in Europe and Asia we have adapted our go to market strategy based on our experiences abroad.

One of the most important pieces to the puzzle is finding the right partners – both from a marketing and an editorial point of view.

As the events are localized, they are held in the local language and focus on case studies, strategies and best practices taken from the local market, producing the conference agenda is no easy task. Under the direction of Kevin Ryan, VP and Global Content Director for SES and SEW, we have identified credible thought leaders in each of the markets we are operating in who we can invite to speak and work with to identify new talent.

On the marketing side of the equation, we have identified the local Search Industry trades and associations than can help us spread the word. We reach out to these groups and offer up cross promotional deals to engage them. In addition to the contras, we are also leveraging our Search Engine Marketing expertise to one, launch effective paid campaigns and two, optimize our site for local SEs.

How does each country present its own unique challenges - cultural or otherwise? Any funny stories you can share here?

Each country does present it’s own unique challenges and in order to do business in these markets one must acquire quite a bit of local knowledge – customs, language, industry specifics and alike.

How have you thought about new “social media” tools when marketing SES? How are you making use of newer tools to make London SES more accessible?

All the time… for instance we have launched LinkedIn and Facebook groups, in addition to YouTube and Flickr channels. We are also quite active on Sphinn, an SEM specific forum launched by Danny Sullivan.

Back on home turf, I’ve heard that registrations for SES New York this month are currently tracking double of where it was last year. Apart from stellar marketing, any other particular reasons why?

SES New York is tracking quite well and it will be a great event. Search Marketing is still a very hot topic, one that also is becoming increasingly complex. While title tags, content and links are still very important the most successful marketers are doing much more than that – for instance the integration of Social Media, Mobile Search, Local Search and the more traditional disciplines of TV, Radio and Print.

Over the last couple year’s we have therefore seen increased integration between Search Marketing and the traditional marketing suite, that said there is still a long way to go. Many executive level decision makers, the men and women who make the final decisions on budgets are really just starting to notice the effectiveness of Search Engine Marketing. As this awareness grows so too will the need to educate these high level decision makers and their teams.

Between the increased interest vertically within large multinationals and the increased complexity in getting your pages to rank – more and more people are turning to Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch for Search Marketing education.

What’s your perspective on the evolution of search, with Google having rolled out universal and blended search? How has this changed your approach for online marketing for SES?

Blended Search, or Universal Search as Google calls it, changed everything when it was introduced last year. Basically it has given marketers such as me that opportunity to utilize multiple doorways in our efforts to get listed on the SERPs, especially within those first 10 listings – videos, blogs, images and alike are more relevant today… hence, the YouTube and Flickr channels.

Another adaptation we have made is to treat the blogger community in the search and digital industries in the same manner we treat traditional press (we are the only Conference Series I know of that does this). The press has always been able to access our event, including all the sessions, for free via the press pass, and now the bloggers can too. I do not think a day goes by in which the SES Conference Series and our content sites, ClickZ and Search Engine Watch, are not mentioned on a blog somewhere.

What hasn’t changed? Keyword discovery for one… it is still very important to carefully select the keywords you are optimizing around. E-mail marketing continues to be an extremely effective tool as well, as does select display campaigns and let’s not forget paid search.

As online marketer for an online marketing company, what are your favorite tools that you use to hone your craft? What tools would you like for someone to invent?

This is going to sounds a bit self-promotional, that said, I have been reading ClickZ.com and SearchEngineWatch.com for many years now and I truly don’t not know how any online marketers can effectively execute on their day to day and stay up-to-date on best practices without reading both sites daily.

Who should we get naked with next?

Don Shultz or Seth Godin

February is a critical time of the year for me personally. I have a lot on the line. Not only is February the month when Saint Valentine, the patron saint of Hallmark comes around, but it also happens to be the month of my wife’s birthday, and my mother’s birthday. Ouch! That is a lot of opportunity for trips to the dog house to come my way. Fortunately, I made it through the gauntlet relatively unscathed this year. In contrast to my own luck (read as: recurring annual reminders on cell phone), February was not too kind to the majority of the big search players. Of course February was kind once again to the biggest fish in the pond despite plenty of less than stellar market buzz.

Google officially crossed the 70% mark for the first time in February, according to Compete search market share numbers. 7 out of 10 web search queries performed in the US were performed on Google! The march up and to the right just doesn’t stop. Google’s search volumes have grown on average 3% per month since February last year, resulting in total year-over-year gains of over 50%. Obviously the story isn’t so rosy for the other players in the space.

The pain at Yahoo! is not limited to Jerry Yang coming to grips with potentially being the Silicon Valley subsidiary of the mighty Microsoft. February was another tough month for Yahoo! search as volumes declined nearly 7% from January and market share fell another point. MSN/Live search in turn dropped nearly 4% on the volume side resulting in a market share loss of about 0.3ppts. That’s a combined Microhoo market share loss of 1.3ppts since January 2008 and 7.1ppts since February 2007.

In other news Ask has thrown in the towel and decided to focus on working women. Then again maybe they aren’t … or are they? We’ll have to wait and see on that one, but one thing is for sure, despite February’s slight volume declines, Ask has been on the upswing over the past year. Ask query volumes were up nearly 56% since February 2007.

The overview …

• Google hits the big 70 for market share as the march goes on
• Yahoo! just can’t seem to escape the slippery slope dropping another point of market share
• MSN/Live seems to have caught some of the Yahoo! blues with market share off month-over-month and year-over-year
• Ask may or may not be for the overworked working woman, but they seem to be holding steady at large
• AOL ticked up in February on small gains and remains up year-over-year
• Is it any surprise that Saint Patrick comes to town with green beverages in tow right after Saint Valentine marches through?

* Search market share includes web search only for the Adult US Online Population and is calculated based on unique queries within each session during the given month.