Syzlak’s SEM

All week I had waited for a package from Amazon. I had ordered the FLCL Ultimate Edition DVD box set, and was on pins and needles in anticipation for the day it would arrive. As it turned out, the package arrived the day after a very ominously thin package from MSN arrived…

Good heavens! What sort of magic could be in this wonderful box???? I mean shit. You’d have to have some sort of magic to make me more attractive to millions of shoppers. I’m a damn fine looking man. Don’t believe me? I can look good eating a cheeseburger.

So, what’s in this box?

Yep, a piece of Styrofoam and a small brochure. Aces!

Lord, really? So, what am I looking at, exactly? Apparently, a “Search Marketing Guide.” Usually, we put these sorts of things on the Web, but I suppose if you’re MSN, that’s just too difficult. Upon further inspection I learn that I’ll be getting tips from “Search Master Steve”

in order to make my business more attractive and “get the most out of adCenter”

Seriously, if anybody out there knows how to get the most out of nothing, please fill me and the rest of the fucking world in on your secret. Also, I find it very hard to believe that with all of Microsoft’s black helicopters, they weren’t able to figure out just how goddamned attractive I already am. Did you really think that Search Master Steve looks better than me? And while I have a minute, how did that guy master search? He can’t even master a comb.

Overheard in an ad exec meeting at MSN:
Ad Exec 1: We need to sell our adCenter product to search marketers that are already signed up with adCenter
Ad Exec 2: Get that guy who looks like the Verizon guy! Utility nerds are so handsome and unassuming!

So what other nuggets of wisdom are found in this manual?

Well, there’s the importance of spelling, and the ultra backasswards way that adCenter chooses to use keyword implementation.

Has anyone ever tried to use this? There’s no code for automatic capitalization as there is in Yahoo and Google and they allow you to have something like 3 parameters in addition to the keyword (for sales, shipping discounts, etc.) . While the parameters are a good idea and have come in handy once or twice, all of their codes are very cumbersome and most of us have our own tricks that are much faster than using MSN’s built in tools.

So what have we learned?

1. MSN does not research their market
2. MSN puts together really stupid booklets
3. I can remember to bring my camera to work, but consistently forget to stop drinking before eating cheeseburgers

This post is tagged 2nd tier, MSN, pissy, Really?