All I have to say, is … it was worth it.

FaceTime is pretty amazing, yes you have to be on an active WiFi connection, but do it once and suddenly you don’t mind restrictions. I keep hearing complaints regarding service interruption based on the way you hold the phone (which to me is sort of like saying “it hurts when I do this”… Well? DON’T DO THAT!). Sheesh people. Steve Jobs is smart and controls many things, but he cannot control the way you hold your phone, caveman.

The clear screen is a huge improvement over the previous models. It reminds me of the day I first saw HD TV. Some of you kids don’t remember analog sets, but what an improvement it was. There are many cool features, but I’ve yet to discover them all. You know, I have to make up for the work time I missed while standing in line in the Texas heat with a bunch of high school kids who were out for the summer.

Thanks to all the friends who brought Doritos and sat with us and kept us company.

It was a great experience.

Now, if I could only figure out how to turn this thing on …

Here is a sampling of the results:

Sprint Navigation for the BlackBerry Pearl 8130

I was desperate, so I decided to scroll through the results. Not one of the results on the page is for Sprint’s standard GPS navigation software, but it got me thinking of some of the ways that good search experiences have completely spoiled me:

• I constantly look for search kiosks in grocery stores.
• I get mad when I do a local search and it doesn’t bring up a OneBox result.
• I refuse to click next page if I don’t find what I want.
• I only type in a few letters to most search boxes and anxiously wait for suggestions.
• The first thing I look for on a complex page is a search box.
• I suffer anxiety at the thought of having to browse through a directory.
• I have become very, very bad at finding anything in the Yellow Pages.

I’m a little extreme, but I’m also part of a very valuable segment online for all kinds of businesses. There are a lot of us, and there is a lot of bad search. As a retailer, I’d want to know exactly how that segment felt about the experience I was providing, and optimize it as effectively as I could.

How much money do you think Sprint loses to bad search?

(I know, I know. Buy an iPhone. On it.)

SEO Game Changers: Breadcrumbs in the Google SERPs

I did a search in Google for things to do london, and that is the result I saw. I was simply scrolling through the results, and the Yahoo! Travel result jumped out at me. It was the #8 result in the SERPs. To be clear, I knew Google was testing a new feature that added a breadcrumb structure to the URL section of each search result. A lot of people were noticing Google’s tests earlier this year, and the breadcrumbs in these test were taking many forms. However, last week, Google made an official announcement about this new feature being launched. Honestly, I didn’t think much of it until I saw it for myself. (Oh, great. Now I sound like some guy who never believed in UFOs until he saw one for himself. But I digest.)

Because I’m an SEO, I have several questions about this new search results feature from Google:

• What factors cause Google to show breadcrumbs for certain sites?
• Can I do anything on my site(s) to influence Google to create breadcrumbs for my listings in the SERPs?
• Do I want breadcrumbs in my site’s listing in the SERPs?
• Does it help or hurt clickthrough rates?
• Will this feature eventually replace the URLs in all search results?
• Can I track visits from these breadcrumbs?

I must admit that I really like these breadcrumbs in the SERPs. Google refers to the breadcrumbs as an improvement, so I can’t imagine they would hurt clickthrough. Also, with more links in my site’s listing, I will have more opportunities for clicks. That’s always nice! Like Google SiteLinks, these breadcrumbs are obviously driven by the Google algorithms. Right now, we have no direct control of them, but I do believe we can optimize our sites with the SERPs breadcrumb in mind. And that’s why this is an SEO game changer: SEOs will soon be adding this to their list of strategies for SEO campaigns.

In reality, SEO will still be SEO, but this new feature brings into focus the hierarchy of a site and the optimization of internal linking. It also makes me wonder about need for semantic URLs. If my URL is not going to be displayed, does it really matter if it contains several relevant keywords? In fact, if Google displays these breadcrumbs for several listings in the SERPs, does it really matter what my URLs look like at all? Of course it does! We still have to keep doing SEO like we have been doing SEO, but now we have to consider the on-site factors that may be contributing to these breadcrumbs.

Website owners can no longer ignore internal linking strategies or URL structures. Furthermore, all SEOs will need to consider the keywords used for internal linking within their websites. We also need to consider the clickthrough rate of keywords in these breadcrumbs. It’s actually a lot to think about. In my opinion, that’s the main reason that this development changes the SEO game. It forces everyone to consider site architecture, hierarchy and internal linking strategies. It also proves the need for an internal breadcrumb for every website. In the end, there is an opportunity for a higher clickthrough rates with these breadcrumbs, and no one can ignore that!

PS. I would not be a true SEO if I neglected to mention that there is the possibility that Google could mess this up for some sites. Some site owners may not like or agree with the hierarchy breadcrumbs that Google displays in their respective listings. Should there be the opportunity to opt out of this feature in Webmaster Central? I’m sure someone will ask for that. Or someone will be yelling about it on Twitter. [Note: I love the SEOs who get mad at Google for taking too many liberties with other peoples' websites and incomes.]

Update: I have been thinking about this one point from Google’s blog post:

Often, however, URLs are too long, too short, or too obscure to add useful information…The new text (breadcrumb) provides useful information about the page. [Google]

If we want Google to give you a breadcrumb in the SERPs, should we create ‘bad’ URLs? These ‘bad’ URLs could be too long, too short or too obscure. Would that not increase the chance that Google gives us a breadcrumb in our search listings? Just saying is all…

Apparently, out of the roughly 250MM cell phones in the US, 10%-12% of those are smartphones. Of those on a smartphone, 36% use this to access the web over a traditional PC.

Pretty impressive stats, by themselves, but I’m more interested in putting them in a different context. If you hopped into the Delorean (the flying one that runs on garbage, not the plutonium-fueled one that gets you chased by Libyans) and go back a decade or so, you’d probably read headlines about traditional media losing a chunk of its audience to digital. You can probably see where I’m going with this. Digital stands to lose a chunk of its audience to mobile. The monarch of Media Mountain is starting to lose some of its serfs.

Of course, it’s not like digital is dead (far from it),but if you’re one those brands who has a pretty big stake, say in something like search, you might want to start thinking about this – like right now. Mobile adoption by brands is still pretty low, which means you can actually get in and work out the channel’s intrinsic kinks at unbelievably low prices. Get in while the tickets are still cheap.