Through some investigative reporting, Laurie Sullivan of MediaPost, uncovered a few flaws in the new Facebook Places feature — namely, the ability to check-in from as far as 800 meters away from a location as well as check other people in with you.

When Laurie asked me for my perspective,  I said I applauded Facebook for launching Places before it had all the kinks worked out. In my column, “Everything I Need to Know About Product Development I Learned From Google,” I share the Googley Lesson, “It Doesn’t Have to be Perfect.”

Indeed, Facebook had to launch a location-based check-in feature asap to combat the growth of Foursquare. With Twitter, Facebook waited too long to change its status update call-to-action, “What are you doing?” to “What’s on your mind.” In the process, Twitter reached significant and sustainable scale.

Facebook won’t make that mistake again and, to be sure, the flaws with Places are relatively minor and (will be) easily corrected.

Here’s Laurie’s full report with my POV baked in: “ What Will Vicarious Facebook Check-Ins Get Advertisers?”

Image Source: Cyber-Cinema.com

In addition to hitting the Web for a Blog Tour, I’ll be appearing at a number of trade shows, conferences, and corporate events in the coming months.

Below is the latest schedule which will be regularly updated. If you’d like me to speak at your event, please Get Connectual.

2012

Tues. Feb. 7: Paneling at Covario’s INFELCTIONPoint 2012 about leveraging paid search and paid social. Pic here.

Wed. Feb. 8: Going back to the well on Facebook best practices at the Online Marketing Summit in San Diego. Slides here.

Wed. Apr. 4: Mediating the Google v. Facebook battle at ad:tech San Francisco. Slides here and solo rap battle here.

Wed. Apr. 4: Paneling on how to monetize search with social at the Power of eMarketing Conference in SF.

Mon. Apr. 23: Hosting the “Search Insider Feud: How Search Changes Your Voice” at Search Insider Summit in Captiva Island, FL. Video here and recap here.

Tues. June 5: Co-presenting with Sachin Gadhvi from TicketsNow, at Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition in Chicago on “How to turn dynamic inventory, seasonality, and promotions into an SEM advantage.” Slides here and rap here.

Thurs. June 14: Presenting at SIM Partners’ SIMposium in Chicago on “Search and Social: Birds of a Feather or Different Flock?” Slides here and rap here.

Wed. Sept. 19: Virtually presenting at the Online Marketing Institute Digital Marketing Strategy Summit re: “Successful Execution of Search & Social.”

Wed. Sept. 19: Physically speaking at the Yahoo! Search & Bing Advertiser Forum in New York on a panel moderated by Craig Macdonald, of Search Insider Feud fame, about industry trends .

Thurs. Sept. 20: Co-presenting with Viji Davis and Erica Barth at the 2012 Resolution Media Summit in Chicago on “Social Observations and Benchmarks for Your Programs” using data from our Social Media Insights research and Social Media Advertising Global Games report.

Thurs. Sept. 27: Hosting a Kenshoo webinar with my colleague Will Martin-Gill and Kenshoo client reps from Sears and iProspect on “Gearing up for the Holiday Shopping Season”. Video here and slides here.

Mon. Oct. 1: Paneling at MediaPost’s OMMA Display in New York on “The Facebook Challenge: Is Social Media Inventory Any Good for Marketers?” with moderator extraordinaire, David Berkowitz. No, not that one. This one.

Tues. Oct. 23: Co-hosting a webinar for Kenshoo Social with Resolution Media on “Social Media and Facebook Advertising Insights.”

Thurs. Dec. 13: Moderating a panel at the Search Insider Summit in Park City, UT on “New Surface Areas for Search Locally and Worldwide.”

2011

Tues. Apr. 12: Speaking on panel at ad:tech San Francisco about paid search marketing. Slides here.

Tues. Apr. 19: Panelist on paid search session at the Power of eMarketing Conference in San Francisco.

Thurs. May 5 and Fri. May 6: Kicking off the Search Insider Summit in Captiva Island, Florida with the Ultimate SEO PPC Rap Battle and then presenting on Personalization vs. Privacy: the Implications for Advertising on day 2. Slides here. Rap battle here.

Tues. May 24: Keynoting day 2 at Social Media Optimization Conference (SMOC) in San Francisco with a look at another great acronym, SAM (Social Advertising and Marketing) and how it compares to SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Slides, pics, and rapping Q&A here.

Tues. June 7: Presenting on behalf of Kenshoo at the Needham Internet and Digital Media Conference in NYC.

Tues. July 26: Presenting at OMS (Online Marketing Summit) Chicago on “10 Channels To Integrate with SEM to Improve Results.” Slides here. Note: topic changed to “What’s Hot in Digital Marketing.”

Tues. Aug. 16: Presenting at SES San Francisco on “Automating Social Media: Creating & Distributing the Message.” Slides here.

Thurs. Sept. 22: Speaking at a Pivot Guild event in Boulder on the topic of “Why Social Media Matters for Your Business.” Recap and slides here.

Tues. Sept. 27: Participating on a panel titled, “Why Display is Better than Search” at OMMA Global New York. (Yes, I will be the contrarian POV.)

Mon. Nov. 14: Getting social with a presentation titled, “Like it or Not: The Do’s and Don’ts of Facebook Ads” at OMS Social Media Summit in Chicago. Rap hear.

Tues. Nov. 15: Sharing more Facebook best practices (virtually same deck as day before but 45 minutes less time to do it!) at SES Chicago. Slides here.

Fri. Dec. 9: Perfecting the search engine at MediaPost’s Search Insider Summit in Deer Valley, UT. Slides and video here.

2010

Tues. Aug. 24: Moderating social media panel at  Integrated Marketing Summit in Chicago.

Thurs. Sept. 16: Delivering happy hour address and raffling off signed copies at Online Marketing Institute and CIMA events in Chicago. Pic here.

Thurs. Sept. 23: “Official Chicago Launch Party” in partnership with the Chicago Interactive Social Club at Blue Frog 22 in Chicago. Pics here.

Tues. Sept. 28: Moderating panel about the how much credit Google gets/takes at OMMA Global in New York. Recap here.

Thurs. Oct. 21: Delivering one-hour presentation about how to apply lessons form SEM to other channels at SES Chicago. Slides here. Rap here.

Wed. Dec. 1: Leading 150 minute workshop at Catalyst Ranch Match Books event in Chicago. Rap videos here.

Wed. Dec. 8 – Sat. Dec. 11: Official MC of the bi-annual Search Insider Summit in Park City, Utah. Rap videos here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.

Readers of my book will know I love a good pun so I was super-excited when Julia from McGraw-Hill’s PR dept. told me my book trailer video was featured today in an industry newsletter called “Shelf Awareness.”

Now Playing at a Blog Near You!

30 Stops. 10 Days. 1 Googley Blog Tour.

In Chapter 5: Be Where Your Audience Is, I preach about creating and distributing content in the places where your best prospects and customers spend time…

“Don’t ask people to stop what they’re doing or leave where they are to come visit you. Break down your brand into assets they can use wherever they are. Find out where the conversations about your brand or offering are happening and plant seeds there.”

It’s with that mantra in mind that my publishers hatched the idea of a blog tour to promote my book. Rather than asking people to come to GoogleyLessons.com, let’s take the Googley Lessons to the people!

Below is the rundown of all scheduled tour stops.

Update: I’m also doing some “real-life” appearances to promote the book, discuss its theme, and share best practices. That schedule is posted at GoogleyLessons.com/Speaking.

Monday, August 30
David Dalka: Online Marketing Management and Business Strategy (Video) – LIVE!
The Social Times (Guest post) – LIVE!
Critical Mass: Experience Matters (Video) – LIVE!

Tuesday, August 31
Temkin Group: Customer Experience Matters (Video) – LIVE!
Jack Myers: MediaBizBloggers (Excerpt) – LIVE!
Andy Santamaria: Chronically Curious (Video) – LIVE!

Wednesday, September 1
PR Newswer (Podcast) – LIVE!
Resolution Media: Find Resolution (Video) – LIVE!

Thursday, September 2
TopRank Online Marketing Blog (Video) – LIVE!
The Search Agency: The Search Agents (Video) – LIVE!
Mobile Marketer (Sound-bytes) – LIVE!

Friday, September 3
Shawn Collins: Affiliate Tip (Q&A) – LIVE!
iMediaConnection (Guest post) – LIVE!
Joe Kutchera: Latino Link (Video) – LIVE!

Tuesday, September 7
Samir Balwani: Connecting Brands with Consumers Online (Guest post) – LIVE!
AdExchanger.com (Q&A) – LIVE!
Fuor Digital (Video) – LIVE!

Wednesday, September 8
Rick Liebling: How Soon is Now? (Guest post) – LIVE!
David Berkowitz: Inside the Marketer’s Studio (Q&A) – LIVE!
Razorfish Search Shots (Video) – LIVE!
Yianni Garcia: Social Media Guy (Guest post) – LIVE!
GroupM Search: Search Fuel (TBD)

Thursday, September 9
DigiDay Daily (Q&A) – LIVE!
Dave Fleet: Conversations at the Intersection of Communications, PR, and Social (Q&A) – LIVE!
SmartBrief SmartBlog on Social Media (Guest post) – LIVE!
Drew McLellan: The Marketing Minute (Video) – LIVE!
BBH Labs (Video) – LIVE!

Friday, September 10
Adam Sherk: News Media SEO – PR – Social Media Marketing (Guest post) – LIVE!
Rohit Bhargava: Influential Marketing (Q&A)
SEOmoz (Video) – LIVE!
Denuo Group: Denuology (Video) – LIVE!

I shared the back-story of how I landed my book deal with Laurie Sullivan for her column in ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors), “Crowdsourcing Social Media Becomes Ticket to Publishing Contract.”

Here’s the quick and dirty of how it all went down:

1. Got inspired to pen a Tweet-o-biography — essentially chronicling my life to date, one tweet at a time
2. Set up a Twitter account @tweetobiography and bought the domain Tweetobiography.com to explain the project and stream the tweets
3. Began tweeting.
4. Presented at ad:tech webinar and digital expo and met marketing rep from McGraw Hill Professional at my “booth”
5. Asked MHP rep if she could get me in touch with an editor to pitch my project
6. Got connected with editor and pitched Tweetobiography
7. Politely told by editor that MHP published business books and Tweetobiography would not be a good fit
8. Got buy-in to come back to editor when I had a more business-friendly book idea
9. Came up with concept for “Everything I Need to Know About Marketing I Learned From Google”
10. Published 10 “lessons” in MediaPost Search Insider column
11. Blogged, tweeted, begged and pleaded for people to click “Like it” on MediaPost column — generated over 150 responses
12. Set up Twitter account @LearnFromGoogle and bought the domain LearnFromGoogle.com to explain the project and stream the tweets (many of which I included in the book to break up the long-form copy and encourage dialogue pre/post publishing). Note: now I’m using @GoogleyLessons and GoogleyLessons.com.
13. Circled back with MHP editor who liked idea and asked me to create formal proposal
14. Published 2 follow-up columns in MediaPost bringing the list of lessons to 20 total
15. Submitted proposal and received offer
16. Put Tweetobiography on hold

Here’s my advice for writers looking to get a deal of their own:

This isn’t an excerpt per se, but I elaborated on 5 marketing lessons learned from Google in Tech Journal South back in February. Have excerpts lined up to run in Visibility Magazine, MediaPost, and others in the hopper. Will post links when they publish.

On Thursday, Google announced it would acquire ITA, a travel software firm, and immediately launched the requisite website pro-actively lobbying to get the deal approved by regulators.

I shared the following POV on the implications of the Google ITA acquisition with Laurie Sullivan of MediaPost for her article, “Google Buys ITA Travel Software Co. For $700 Million Cash, Dings Bing.”

Let’s start with advantages to users, which is always how Google thinks about things. The future of search utility is not in links but in actions. In my book [Chapter 21: Future Proofing, to be exact] I talk about how the future is search-and-act engines or “app-ssistants” like Siri (which Apple bought) that allow you to give instructions rather than submit queries and deliver actions not just links. So for example, if you’re planning a trip you can just tell your app-ssistant, “Chicago to New York for pleasure” and it will fetch you an itinerary with airlines, hotel, car rental, dinner reservations, theater tickets, etc. all based on your saved preferences. In this example, a product like ITA is critical to gathering and organizing much of the data needed to complete the action.

For advertisers, the advantages are a little less obvious. Long-term, search-and-act engines will provide tremendous opportunities to brands that have digitized and distributed their assets [as outlined in Chapter 17: Show Off Your Assets] so app-ssistants can find them and include them in the actions they deliver. Short-term, ITA likely means more traffic to Google and, importantly, more commercial queries that advertisers love because they represent someone ready to buy, read: strong ROI. [More on this in Chapter 4: Mindset Matters.]

For Google, more commercial queries mean more ad revenue. Also, Bing has been playing up its strengths in travel with Farecast integration. This deal should give Google the decided edge and help it retain share.

Image Source: Channel Fever.net