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March 2009

Job Search Site, Simply Hired, Expands to Germany, Spain and France

The job search site, Simply Hired, has announced its expansion to Germany, Spain and France. Simply Hired already has job search sites for the U.S., Australia, Canada, India and the U.K. and has aggregated 5 million jobs worldwide.

"Each of Simply Hired's websites is tailored for the job seeker, with features and functionality that empower them to lead the pack of candidates applying for any given job," said Sachin Shah, director of product management, Simply Hired. "By design, the Simply Hired websites show job seekers their requested results and then enable them to click directly to the originating website, facilitating the most direct interaction with the employer."

Related Reading:
Job Search is Fastest Growing Online Content Category in 2008
Top 10 Toughest Jobs to Fill? The Top 3 Are In Search Engine Marketing
The 5 Web Resources You Need to Find a Job in Search
Matt McGowan Quoted in BusinessWeek Article about SEO Jobs

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 31, 2009, 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Long Term Tech Exec to Exit Yahoo!

Another executive at Yahoo! is planning to leave the Sunnyvale search engine. Venkat Panchapakesan, executive vice president of the Audience Technology Group will say farewell at the end of the summer. It will be almost one year after consumer-facing platforms were moved under his direction after a Yahoo! reorganization last summer.

Panchapakesan was CEO of Yahoo! India R&D from 2003-2006. He's returning to India after an 11 year stint as a Purple Person.

While at Yahoo!, Panchapakesan worked on a bunch of products including Mail, Flickr, Answers, Groups, Messenger and content properties. Prior to Yahoo!, Panchapakesan worked for Hewlitt Packard.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 31, 2009, 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jimmy Wales Whacks Wikia Search

Jimmy Wales launched Wikia Search a little over a year ago. His idea was to build a user-generated search. It opened to not-so-great fanfare and the dismal economy didn't help things. Wales said that due to a reassessment of priorities, he's nixing Wikia Search.

Not all Wikia products are suffering a dark fate. Wikia Answers is proving to be quite popular, which holds with the current trend in the popularity of Answers sites.

Wales hopes to return to his Wikia Search project during future, more profitable times. He holds strong to his belief in openness and transparency in search.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 31, 2009, 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yield Software Launches Search Marketing Suite

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with the guys from Yield Software about their brand spankin' new search marketing software that they're launching today. It's called the Yield Web Marketing Suite and it automates several tedious search marketing tasks into one.

There are 3 components to the suite:

SEO - The software will scan your web page, run library of best practices, monitor what's happening with search engines, and offer analysis. But don't expect any sketchy recommendations. It's only white hat here, folks.
Paid Search - Yield offers automated bid management for the big three search engines: Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. You can view all of your campaigns in a single place. The software also offers keyword optimization.
Landing Page Optimization - You can use Yield to help create multivariate experiments. If it sounds intimidating, don't freak out - there are step by step instructions to help. You can also have it automatically display the most successful version to increase conversions.

Yield offers month-to-month contracts that start at $129. The software is web-based so you don't have to worry about downloading or installation.

Best part? You can try it free for 30 days. The Yield team gave me a demo and the software looks slick and user-friendly.

What do you think of Yield's Web Marketing Suite? Demo the software and then head back here and give your review in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 31, 2009, 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Twitter Taps Ex-Google Lead Designer Doug Bowman as Creative Director

Recently, Visual Design Lead Doug Bowman left Google because he felt it was too constricting of an environment for a designer. I wasn't surprised. Marissa Mayer holds a tight leash on all things Google design-wise. Managing a design effort that's based on an old style serif font with primary colors and micromanaged by an executive with a programming background is probably not the dream of most cutting edge designers.

But don't feel bad for Bowman. The hottest tech company out there right now has picked him up. Twitter has tapped Bowman to be their Creative Director.

When you think of Twitter and design, a few things come to mind:

A very bubbly logo
A bird
Small birds attempting to lift a very infamous whale

It will be interesting to see where Bowman takes Twitter. There's no doubt the company is evolving. With the inevitable monetization methods on the horizon, design will likely play a key role.

But design also has its role in simply updating Twitter as is. Twitter has tweaked the front page a lot since its inception, from testing a search box to a sidebar overhaul. The design efforts have been squarely under co-founder Biz Stone's responsibilities.

Of course, Biz is a very busy dude right now, so hiring a Creative Director appears to be a wise delegation.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 31, 2009, 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Starts a Venture Capitalist Fund

If you didn't think Google had enough dominance in search, try this on for size: the search engine giant has started a venture capitalist fund. The areas they seek to invest are:

Consumer Internet
Software
Clean-tech
Bio-tech
Health care

Google says more industries could be added in the future as their interest determines. Google says it will follow the best practices of "top-tier, financially focused venture capital firms" and place Googlers at the center of the effort.

Will Google be successful? I'm sure a lot of you have opinions on the matter. Let 'em rip in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 31, 2009, 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Andrew Goodman to Guy Kawasaki: You are Ruining Twitter!

At SES New York last week, I was amazed that the buzz generated by Guy Kawasaki's keynote about "Twitter as a Tool for Social Media" lasted more than 24 hours. Well, now it's a week later and everyone's still talking about the implications of what the author of Reality Check and Founding Partner of Garage Technology Ventures said in his bully pulpit.

Andrew Goodman at SES San Jose 2008.jpg For example, check out Andrew Goodman's latest post in Traffick: "Is Guy Kawasaki Singlehandedly Ruining Twitter? (Part I)." Goodman says, "I'm relatively new to Twitter, but then again, I'm not slow :), so I have seen these kinds of trends come and go. Mostly, since the late 1990's, what we've seen are spammers in various channels tell us that they're the cool ones and not really spamming."

And then as quietly and calmly as someone who is about to take you to the woodshed, Goodman adds, "I'd love to be able to make the point that it's not about the man, it's about the tactics. As honorable as that might be, it's impossible to separate the two... as you'll see."

You're going to have to read Goodman's next 17 paragraphs for yourself. I haven't seen this kind of outburst by a mild mannered Canadian since Molson ran its extremely popular ad, "The Rant", in 2000.

However, let me give you one small sample: "If everyone listened to Guy Kawasaki and admired his Twitter tactics, Twitter would start looking more and more like a digital trailer park."

I'm just glad that I don't live in Buffalo anymore. Or, I would have been blistered by the heat from nearby Toronto.

Maybe everything on the Twitter front will have cooled down by the time SES Toronto is held June 8-10, 2009. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Remember, Molson's commercial, "The Rant", was a remarkable success, spawning a number of parodies and copycats. This includes William Shatner's variation, "I am not a Starfleet commander."

So, I don't think we've seen the last of this.

I know that Twitter has an 140-character limit. Now, if only we could limit responses to Kawasaki's keynote to 140 Tweets.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 31, 2009, 6:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

MySpace Mobile Application to Support Microsoft Windows Mobile and Silverlight

A new MySpace mobile application set to debut this summer will support Microsoft Windows Mobile as well as Microsoft Silverlight. Silverlight is technology similar to Adobe's Flash that powers rich media.

"We are pleased to bring MySpace users the benefits and flexibility of Microsoft's platforms," said Aber Whitcomb, chief technology officer of MySpace. "Our relationship enables app developers to use Silverlight to create engaging MySpace apps and allows Windows Mobile users to have a more personal MySpace experience on their phone."

MySpace already has mobile applications for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Sidekick, Palm, and Nokia.

Related Reading:
MySpace Launches Self-Service Ad Platform
Facebook & MySpace Connect: Good Idea or Social Media Catastrophe?
Google, Yahoo & MySpace Team Up for OpenSocial

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 30, 2009, 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Search Drives 5th Consecutive Record Setting Year in Internet Advertising

Despite the economic decline of 2008, internet advertising reached $23.4 billion, setting a new record high. Records have been set for five consecutive years, according to data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Search grew 19% over 2007, maintaining its role as the driving force behind the continued (yet slowed) growth in internet advertising.

Meanwhile, digital video is on the rise, more than doubling revenues from $324 million in 2007 to $734 million in 2008.

The fourth quarter of 2008 was the first time a single quarter surpassed $6 billion.

"We are seeing an ongoing secular shift from traditional to online media as marketers recognize that ad dollars invested in interactive media are effective at influencing consumers and delivering measurable results," said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB. "In this uncertain economy, where marketers know they need to do more with less, interactive advertising provides the tools for them to build deep, engaging relationships with consumers--the experience marketers gain from this will deliver dividends especially after the economy turns around."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 30, 2009, 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Report: Jonathan Miller to Run NewsCorp's Digital Unit

AOL's former Chief Executive Jonathan Miller has been approached by NewsCorp to head up their digital unit, according to reports. Miller is under a non-compete agreement with AOL, but that expires within days. The agreement prevented Miller from joining Yahoo!'s expanded board, a compromise with investor Carl Icahn last summer during the Microsoft acquisition aftermath.

Currently, Miller is a partner at investment firm Velocity Interactive Group. He left AOL in 2006. Last fall, it was rumored that he wanted to buy Yahoo, but it turned out he was raising funds for Velocity, not a Yahoo purchase.

NewsCorp is the parent company of MySpace. They also have an investment in fast-rising online video site, Hulu.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 30, 2009, 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google AdSense Says Goodbye to YouTube Video Feature

Google will no longer be offering YouTube video ads in AdSense. Apparently, the feature hasn't performed as well as AdSense had hoped. Publishers may still get video ads if they accept image ads on their sites or if the produce video content and use AdSense for video.

Meanwhile, if publishers still want to feature YouTube videos, they can, of course, embed videos directly on their site. They can also create playlists to feature multiple videos.

What do you think of Google killing YouTube video ads? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading:
Google AdSense Releases News Widget
AdSense Publisher Sues Google - And Wins
Google AdSense Allows Feed Ad Review

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 30, 2009, 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Death of newspapers or new era of online journalism?

I just received an email from an old friend about The Christian Science Monitor, which published its final daily print edition yesterday. This prompts me to ask, "Should search engine marketers mourn the death of newspapers or celebrate the new era of online journalism?"

The Christian Science Monitor.jpg Before I tackle this emotional question, let's review the facts objectively -- as any good journalist would do.

The key words in my first sentence are "daily print." Or, as John Yemma, the editor of The Christian Science Monitor, wrote yesterday, "As of today, we are shedding print on a daily basis."

In his Editor's message about changes at the Monitor, Yemma acknowledged, "To survive in today's business environment, newspapers everywhere are taking radical steps. Some are decreasing the frequency of print. Some are now Web-only. Some have shut down or surrendered to receivership."

For example, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News announced in December 2008 that both would cut back home delivery to only Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays starting in spring 2009. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has just gone to a web-only version. And the Rocky Mountain News and Ann Arbor News have shut down completely.

Meanwhile, the Project for Excellence in Journalism has just issued The State of the News Media 2009. As the inverted pyramid style of news requires, the introduction of the annual report on American journalism captures the "gist" of the story: "Some of the numbers are chilling."

It continues, "Newspaper ad revenues have fallen 23% in the last two years. Some papers are in bankruptcy, and others have lost three-quarters of their value. By our calculations, nearly one out of every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 is now gone, and 2009 may be the worst year yet."

So, when Yemma said in his Editor's message, "Saying goodbye to daily print closes an era," he was talking about more than the Monitor. He was also addressing the looming death of the newspaper industry.

However, Yemma then turns to this new thought: "But the Monitor itself - the century-old journalistic enterprise chronicling the world's challenges and progress - is becoming more daily than ever."

Yemma added, "No longer inked on wood pulp, no longer trucked from printing plants to your mailbox, no longer published only five days a week, the daily Monitor is now a dynamic online newspaper on all days."

And he concluded, "Two million individuals now engage with us online each month, about 40 times the number that have been subscribing to the print daily. We are linked deeply and extensively across the Internet."

Before joining the Monitor in July 2008, Yemma oversaw editorial operations of the Boston Globe's Boston.com website and led the efforts to transform the newsroom from print to multi-media. So, he has the chops to make that statement.

Or, as Yemma put it, "Think of it this way: We are putting on new clothes for a new era, but we are the same Monitor, committed to the same objective we have adhered to since we were launched a century ago."

And according to Newsknife, The Christian Science Monitor was one of the top six sources in Google News in February 2009, and #1 in terms of most appearances on the home page as a percentage of site total.

So, maybe there is something for search engine marketers to celebrate here.

To paraphrase Stewart Brand, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and cofounder of The Well, The Christian Science Monitor is now just bits flying around rather than atoms, but it remains a steady and reliable source of information about the world.

I'll link to that.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 28, 2009, 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

NYC Public Relations Firms: Give PR Jobs to CCNY Students

If top NYC public relations firms are smart, they'll give PR jobs or paid internships to The City College of New York (CCNY) students that I met last week. Why? Because most of these kids know something that most of us don't and it is crucial to our survival as an industry.

Let me explain.

I played reverse hooky last Wednesday afternoon. I attended school when I didn't have to.

Professor Philip Ryan invited me to visit his Introduction to Public Relations class at CCNY. He was covering Chapter 13 of Public Relations Strategies and Tactics, (9th Edition) by Dennis L. Wilcox of San Jose State University and Glen T. Cameron of University of Missouri. Published by Allyn & Bacon in February 2008, Chapter 13 is entitled, "New Technologies in Public Relations."

But, as one of the students in Professor Ryan's class pointed out, "There's nothing in our textbook about SEO PR."

So, I asked for a show of hands. "How many of you use Facebook?" Virturally everyone did. "How many of you use YouTube?" Nearly everyone did. "How many of you use Twitter?" Almost everyone did.

So, I observed, "Well, SEO-PR was founded 2003, Facebook in 2004, YouTube in 2005, and Twitter in 2006. So, just because these new technologies aren't covered in your textbook doesn't mean they aren't fundamentally changing public relations as we know it. I'm speaking at Search Engine Strategies New York this week and these new technologies are all on the agenda along with social media and blogging."

Another student observed, "When I Googled the term 'SEO' you weren't ranked #1."

I replied, "Well, that's not one of my target terms. Now, if you Google the term 'SEO PR', you'll see my firm is ranked #1."

The student countered, "But that's the name of your company."

And I responded, "The term 'SEO PR' gets about 320 searches a month. Not bad for a keyword that didn't exist in 2003. But, if you Google 'blog outreach', you'll also see my firm is currently ranked #1. How many of you think blog outreach is an important part of media relations services, especially with 900,000 blog posts every day?"

Then, I added, "Besides, what I really want you to do is conduct a query at Google News for the term 'Online Marketing Summit' and find the optimized press release that we distributed yesterday for ClickZ."

I think that's when they started cutting me a little slack.

Then, Professor Ryan asked, "How is contextual marketing changing public relations as we know it?"

I explained, "Contextual advertising is targeted to a Web page based on the page's content. This means there is the opportunity to create editorial content targeted at the contextual advertising that you want to attract to your news blog or YouTube channel."

Yes, these were tough questions from sophisticated students and their professor.

Which means these CCNY students are exactly the kind of people that NYC public relations firms need to hire if they are going to survive short-term or thrive long-term.

Yes, they are still acquiring the skill of writing a press release. But they already understand that an optimized press release can get a high ranking in news search engines.

Yes, they are still becoming acquainted with the fundamentals of persuasion and communications theory. But they have already mastered how to make friends on Facebook.

Yes, they are still beginning to recognize how PR relates to other fields of marketing. But they're already familiar with how to upload YouTube videos.

Yes, they are still learning the key ethical issues affecting the practice of PR. But they've developed an appreciation for the acceptable use ofand unacceptable abuse of Twitter.

CCNY 2.jpg Unfortunately, most NYC public relations firms won't give PR jobs or even paid internships to these CCNY students?

Why? Short term, the recession is the primary excuse. But even if there is an opening, most of the job descriptions in the public relations industry were written back in the 20th Century. So, these square pegs won't fit into the round holes.

For example, is your HR department trying to hire an entry level public relations specialist? Does the job description read: "Prepares and disseminates information regarding an organization through newspapers, periodicals, television and radio and other forms of media. May require a bachelor's degree in a related area and 0-2 years of experience in the field or in a related area. Has knowledge of commonly-used concepts, practices, and procedures within a particular field. Relies on instructions and pre-established guidelines to perform the functions of the job. Primary job functions do not typically require exercising independent judgment. Works under immediate supervision; typically reports to a supervisor or manager."

So, don't blame your HR department if they aren't looking for someone who can prepare and optimize information regarding an organization through news search engines, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

And who is at fault if someone who doesn't have a bachelor's degree gets filtered out during the screening process even through they could have brought knowledge of new concepts, practices and procedures to the table?

And ask yourself, honestly, do you want someone who relies on instructions and pre-established guidelines to perform the ever-changing fuctions of the job? Or do you really need someone who doesn't typically exercise independent judgment in an emerging field that didn't exist when you went to college?

In other words, are you giving PR jobs to the people you will need in 2009 and the decade after this? Or, is your HR department rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

Now, if I were you, I'd find a way to play reverse hooky at CCNY.

Other "guests" to Professor Ryan's class have included Garrett Glaser, a corporate communications consultant and former reporter for CNBC, and Rena L. Lewis, the Director of Brand Management, Industries & Marketing, at KPMG, and will include David Grant, President of LVM Group.

And television journalism icon Dan Rather will deliver the Spring 2009 Samuel Rudin Distinguished Visiting Scholars Lecture at The City College of New York on Thursday, April 2. Mr. Rather, who was anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 1981 to 2005, will speak about "Democracy and the 24-Hour News Cycle."

This kind of "higher education" doesn't fit on the normal resume.

That's why it's time to overhaul the job screening process at most NYC public relations firms to ensure that you're giving PR jobs to CCNY students and others like them who are crucial to the survival of the public relations industry.

But, hey, what do I know? I'm not even mentioned in the college textbooks.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 28, 2009, 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Searchme Adds Twitter Button to Aid Tweets of Search Results

Visual search engine Searchme has added a Twitter button that helps users Tweet the search results they've come across. Once you've conducted your search, simply click the button. You'll be taken to the Twitter homepage where a Tweet is already prepared for you. Tweak as needed or go ahead and update. Check it out...

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 27, 2009, 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Maps Enables Search for Complete User-Generated Maps

Google Maps has a feature called "My Maps" where users can create custom maps marking points of interest. Users can set them as private or as public and share them. Until now, the complete maps didn't show up in the results.

That's changing, however, as Google rolls out the ability to view these complete maps by including them in the search results. Google made several suggestions of search terms to try as an example. When I click on the link from the Google LatLong blog, it works.

When I search the term on my own, I don't get the results. It's still relying too heavily on my current location.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 27, 2009, 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AdMob Tests Automatic Pricing Adjustments

Mobile advertising network AdMob is testing automatic pricing adjustments which they will make their customers' jobs easier. The idea is that automatic pricing will help lower maximum Cost-Per-Click (CPC) bids and reward publishers that deliver higher value clicks.

AdMob says take into account the following during the test:

Advertiser bid
Competition across the network
The type of site on which the ad was served
Value of an ad impression to advertisers

If their attempt at weeding out inefficiencies is productive, it will be a good thing. While ">AdMob is great at getting ads out and clicked on, the value of those clicks remains questionable.

Many have used AdMob ads for iPhone advertising, but it's all too easy to accidentally click on the ads when, say, playing a game. It's not click fraud but it's not a legitimate click either.

Kudos to AdMob for working on the problem and we'll watch the space closely to see what develops.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 27, 2009, 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Veoh Allows Video Sharing Within Groups

Online video site Veoh is now offering groups. Many social sites offer groups. LinkedIn and Facebook are two social networks that have very popular and successful group features.

Groups are a great way of finding other users on the same network with similar interests, but they're also great for sharing. So much of the web, from search to social media to shopping, is about discovery, and groups are an awesome tool for finding new things - and sharing things for others to discover.

What do you think about Veoh's new groups? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 27, 2009, 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Cuts 200 Employees in Sales and Marketing

Google has announced that it's cutting its sales and marketing staff by 200 worldwide. While it's never a happy experience, the bright side is that this is only about 1% of Google's total staff. Also, let's face it, if you need to find another job, having Google on your resume is helpful. Plus, I'm sure they'll have a better than average severance package.

Still, it sucks. Unfortunately, they're not alone. In search and social media, we've seen layoffs at Yahoo, Zillow and Fox Interactive, which owns MySpace.

But there are always those who will make lemonade out of lemons. A laid off Yahoo! started the Purple People Collective, to help other laid off Yahoo!'s find work.

Despite the economy, there are jobs out there. Check out these 5 Web Resources You Need to Find a Job in Search.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 27, 2009, 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Big Stories from Day 3 of SES New York 2009

There were just as many big stories on Day 3 of SES New York 2009 as there were on the first two days of the event. Since I took the Acela back to Boston last night, I'm only getting around to reporting on them this morning.

John Gerzema at SES New York 2009.jpg The big story was the morning keynote by John Gerzema, Chief Insights Officer at Young & Rubicam Group and author of "The Brand Bubble." In her post, "Morning Keynote: John Gerzema," Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media wrote, "John starts off. Marketing is your way out of the recession. In 2008, there was a credit crisis that shook the world to its core. Now we're seeing a confidence crisis."

Another one of the big stories was "Tips for Better Business Blogging - SES New York" by Lee Odden of TopRank's Online Marketing Blog. Before covering the session, Odden observed, "SES New York did pretty well considering many conferences are feeling the effects of business budget cuts. Publisher and VP Matt McGown stated that over 5,000 people attended 2009 SES New York."

Among the big stories was "Search Goes Global," by Kevin Ryan of Search Engine Watch. According to Ryan, "As if people didn't have enough issues with communicating, extending a search initiative beyond the borders of the United States represents its own unique challenges, not the least of which is that it looks easier than it is."

Another big story was "Where Social Media Fits Into the SEO Equation," by Chris Crum of WebProNews. According to Crum, "I thought it would be interesting to explore social media and how it relates directly to search engine optimization. I sent a couple of questions to several online marketing experts to get their thoughts on the subject."

Another one of the big stories was "HuffPo Blogger Brad Balfour Dishes on News Search Optimization from a Journalist's Perspective," an interview of Brad Balfour of the Huffington Post and BMB Media by John Mulligan of SEO-PR. Balfour discusses his own experiences blogging for the Huffington Post and the optimization strategies he has deployed in the search and social realms.

HuffPo Blogger Brad Balfour Dishes on News Search Optimization from a Journalist's Perspective

One of the other big stories was "Ads All Up In Yo Facebook @ SES New York" by Manny Rivas of the aimClear Search Marketing Blog. Rivas asks, "Why is Facebook so attractive to advertisers? Users are sharing personal information that make efficiently targeting a particular audience simple. BOOYA!"

Another big story was "SEO: Where to Next? At SES NY" by Brian Cosgrove of Search Marketing Gurus. Cosgrove reported, "On Day 1 of SES New York, the Where to Next panel was among the first in the track portion of the show. As you will read, the session was a conversation that migrated from topic to topic in fairly nonlinear path."

Another big story was "News Search SEO" by Virginia Nussey of Bruce Clay's SEO Blog. According to Nussey, "Off to the organic track for some news and SEO learning."

Yet another one of the other big stories was "Twitter Influence - Guy Kawasaki at SES NYC" by Sally Falkow of Social Media Today. According to Falkow, "On Day one of SES New York Guy Kawasaki's keynote certainly stirred the audience and caused a flurry of tweets on Twitter."

The final big story is "SES NY: Mysteries of Online Video Revealed," an interview by Mike McDonald of the WebProNews Video Blog with, ah, me. According to McDonald, "Why is video so hot right now? According to Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR, the reason people are creating videos right now is because so many other people are as well. It is simply a chain reaction."

More WebProNews Videos

SES NY: Mysteries of Online Video Revealed

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 27, 2009, 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google AdWords Expands Beta Interface

Google has expanded the availability of the new AdWords interface to additional U.S. advertisers plus more countries and languages (Spanish, Japanese, French, and Brazilian Portuguese). The beta originally opened to more limited availability last November.

Here's what to expect, per the Inside AdWords blog:

Performance graphs: Spot trends over time with custom graphs on every campaign management page.
Insight across ad groups: Focus on the high-impact areas of your account with new roll-up tabs on every page. You can see and edit keywords, placements or ads from all ad groups on a single tab.
In-line editing: Want to change a keyword or bid? Click on it and make changes in-line instead of loading a separate page.
Easier content network management: Improve content network performance through a new Networks tab. Look at statistics for the placements where your ads have appeared, and then take action by setting unique bids or excluding placements directly from the report.

If you'd like to sign up for the beta, click here.

Have you tried the new interface? Share your experience in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 27, 2009, 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

iPhone Advances Mobile Search in the UK

comScore has released data about iPhone users in the UK and compared to other mobile devices, the iPhone is certainly spurring on mobie search.

55% of iPhone users conduct searches on their devices, while just 32% of smartphone users and 12% of all mobile phone users search on their phones.

In fact, the iPhone beats smartphones and other mobile phones in every major category from email to mobile music to social networking:

The downside? The iPhone has yet to become mainstream in the UK.

"The iPhone is indeed an early adopter phenomenon in the United Kingdom," said Alistair Hill, analyst, comScore. "While the device's ease of use is certainly contributing to the lift we see in mobile media consumption, the fact that the device requires a subscription package that includes an unlimited data plan is also a contributing factor. However, it is also important to note that while nearly all iPhone owners are consuming mobile media, the device is in the hands of only two percent of mobile phone users in the UK."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 26, 2009, 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

YouTube Changes the Names of Some Features

YouTube has announced a name change for some of the features on its site. They are as follows:

Spotlight Videos - These are videos that YouTube are entertaining or educational for the masses, so they highlight them.

Promoted Videos - Originally called "Sponsored Videos," these are the paid video ads - like paid search but for YouTube and with videos.

Featured Videos - These videos have gained popularity among YouTube's users and therefore get prominent attention on the largest online video site in the world.

What do you think of the name changes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 26, 2009, 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo!'s Inquisitor iPhone App Released to More Countries

I have a confession to make. I love the new Yahoo! Inquisitor app for the iPhone. I like it better than - gasp - searching Google. But do people from other nationalities, geographic locations and languages feel the same way? They're about to find out.

Yahoo! is releasing its Inquisitor iPhone app to 11 more countries. They are:

Canada
UK
France
Germany
Italy
Netherlands
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Australia
New Zealand

The Inquisitor app is set to Yahoo!'s U.S. index by default, but users can choose another country in the options menu.

Yahoo! acquired the assets of Inquisitor last Spring. Inquisitor began as a search suggestion plug-in for Safari, a web browser developed by Apple who produces the iPhone. Since the acquisition, Inquisitor has been extended to become a plug-in for Firefox and Internet Explorer as well as now the aforementioned app for the iPhone.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 26, 2009, 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Bundles Tools in a New Service for Website Hosting Providers

Last year, Google extended Webmaster Tools to hosting providers, who could in turn offer it to their customers. Now, Google has released "Services for Websites," a bundled package of tools for website hosting providers. Included in the bundle are Webmaster Tools, AdSense, Custom Search, and Site Search.

When a hosting provider implements "Services for Websites," its customers can integrate Google tools with just one click. Here's what it looks like for customers of two providers:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 26, 2009, 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Blackberry Users Get Voice on their Google Mobile App

Last November, Google added voice search to their iPhone mobile application. Now, Blackberry users are getting the perk.

The updated Google Mobile App for Blackberry now has the ability to conduct a voice search. If you have a Blackberry and want to download the app, browse to http://m.google.com on your device.

The voice feature is available for Blackberry devices with O/S 4.2 and higher (except the Storm). The app without voice is available for devices with O/S 4.1+. The app for Blackberry Storm is not available yet - but they're working on it.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 25, 2009, 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Experiments with Search "Wonder Wheel"

Over at Google Blogoscoped, Tony Ruscoe & Philipp Lenssen have uncovered a Google Experiment called the "Wonder Wheel." The experiment shows related searches. Ruscoe and Lenssen offered up screenshots using the search term "comic books."

Wonder Wheel is reminiscent of the concept (though not the visual implementation) behind Quintura.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 25, 2009, 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

SEO Samba Releases Updated Search Management Platform with Google Tools Integration

SEO Samba has updated their search management platform. The update includes integration with Google Tools. Here's what to expect:

Google Analytics (GA) tab that displays website usage data - Automatically adds GA code to your site. Email marketing communication is enabled, allowing marketers to access Clickstream data.
Google Webmaster tools that help Google better index your site - Creates and uploads verification files as well as XML sitemaps for both Web and news to Google Webmaster tools automatically. SEO Samba also checks robots.txt files for errors, and makes the Google 404 widget available within the integrated CMS.
Google Website Optimizer (GWO) to test landing pages & improve conversions - Automatically adds GWO experiments code to your site without having to switch between screens or involve your IT department. Add/delete experiments and monitor the progress of a landing page experiment.

"We have now made it possible to use your Google login account to link your existing account with SEO Samba," said Michel Leconte, founder & CEO SEO Samba. "Once logged into SEO Samba, you will notice three new Google colored tabs. Each tab enables you to make use of Google tools, including Google Website Optimizer for testing A/B variant of landing pages and Google Webmaster Tools to access search engine early indexation, ranking and analysis feedback."

What do you think of the new SEO Samba? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 25, 2009, 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Live Search Offers NCAA Tourney Info in Instant Answers

Live Search has added NCAA basketball tournament information to the Instant Answers they offer in the search results. Use "NCAA tournament," "March Madness," or "college basketball" to get broad answers. Use a team name and mascot to get Instant Answers about, um, a TEAM!

Earlier this week, Live Search unveiled Active Answers and Instant Answers are included in the IE 8 search box as well. Last November, shopping and flight status information were added to Instant Answers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 25, 2009, 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google AdWords Offers New Postpay Payment Method

Google AdWords has introduced "Make a Payment," a new option for postpay customers. The feature allows payments to be made for any amount and at varying times. This helps customers who pay with different methods of payment.

It also helps advertisers who have set billing threshold, but exceed that threshold multiple times day. In this scenario, they would be billed several times a day.

With "Make a Payment," advertisers can even pay in advance for expected future costs. To sign up for the new feature, click here to fill out an application form.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 25, 2009, 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ten Top Stories from Day 1 of SES New York

The Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York 2009 Conference and Expo started a Tweet storm earlier today. The opening keynote was by Guy Kawasaki, a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures, who spoke about "Twitter as a Tool for Social Media."

Guy Kawasaki at SES New York 2009.jpg 1. Andrew LaVallee of The Wall Street Journal Digits Blog captured the top story of SES New York in his headline, "Guy Kawasaki Can Handle Being Called a Spammer." LaVallee wrote, "To kick off his keynote speech at SES, a marketing conference in New York, Guy Kawasaki asked how many people in the audience were on Twitter at that moment. Hands shot up across the packed ballroom."

2. Mel Carson, Microsoft's adCenter Community Manager for Europe, posted photos of the event on his blog in a post entitled, "SES New York Photos -- Day 1." One of his photos shows the volume of Tweets about Kawasaki bringing down Twitter during his keynote.

3. Anna Maria Virzi of ClickZ focused on the Twitter tips and tools that Kawasaki shared in his keynote in her story entited, "Twitter Tips: Advice from Evangelist Guy Kawasaki."

4. I was able to interview Kawasaki after his keynote and asked him how Alltop, the "online magazine rack" of popular topics, has used Twitter to promote itself. Despite some audio problems (which have since fixed), I also asked Kawasaki abut a new term he had coined called "UFM."

Guy Kawasaki Tweets About Twitter Twits & his Reality Check

Although Kawasaki's keynote about Twitter was the top story at SES New York, there were others.

5. For example, Mike McDonald of WebProNews interviewed Matt McGowan, Vice President and Publisher for Incisive Media's Interactive Marketing Group, about highlights from SES New York 2009. According to McGowan, SES NY will house more than 5,000 people this week including over 100 exhibitors and sponsors in the Expo Hall.

More WebProNews Videos

Highlighting SES NY 2009

6. Another top story was the session, "SEO: Where to Next?" Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media covered this session in a post appropriately entitled, "SEO -- Where to Next." According to Barone, "You know what my favorite thing about SES is? It comes with Mike Grehan."

7. Another top story was the session on "Budget Migration: Going Digital Without Impacting Your Brand." John Gaffney of the Econsultancy Blog covered this session in a post entitled, "Century 21, Avon ring up total digital makeovers."

8. Peter Provost of the AimClear Blog covered the "Survival of the Fittest 2.0" session. His post is entitled, "Bad Economy? Party like 1999, Market like 2009."

9. Bas van den Beld of SearchCowboys.com shared several photos from the event in his post entitled, "Looking at SES New York."

10. Finally, one of the ten top stories was the Exhibit Hall traffic visiting the 100 sponsors and exhibitors at SES New York 2009. My post to the Search Engine Marketing News Blog on Search Engine Watch was entitled, "SES New York is a Search Expo as well as an SEM Conference."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 25, 2009, 7:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Launches Two Updates to Results Pages

Google has announced two updates to results pages which they hope will enhance the users experience by better understanding user intent. First up, a new technology has been deployed to understand the associations of a given search phrase. Google offered up the example of "principles of physics." With the new technology, Google now understands that "angular momentum," "special relativity," "big bang" and "quantum mechanic" are terms associated with the original term.

The next update is related to long search queries. These results will now return more lines of description (the words under the title) when necessary. The idea is that with more words, more lines may be necessary to help users find precisely what they're looking for.

What do you think of these updates? Will they improve the search experience on Google? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 24, 2009, 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Yahoo! Names Elisa Steele Chief Marketing Officer

Yahoo! has named Elisa Steele as their new Chief Marketing Officer. Steele previously held positions as senior vice president of corporate marketing at NetApp and led integrated marketing and merchandising efforts at Sun. She will report directly to new Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz.

"The Yahoo! brand is one of our most valuable and strategic assets, and Elisa is charged with unlocking its potential globally. Elisa has an outstanding track record in leading global marketing, branding, and communications teams, and we're excited to welcome her to Yahoo!'s executive staff," said Bartz. "Yahoo!'s marketing strategy and teams have become decentralized over time - hiring Elisa in the CMO role will quickly mobilize our plan to integrate the function globally and more effectively represent the Yahoo! brand."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 24, 2009, 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Live Search Unveils Active Answers

Live Search is adding a new feature to its search results. They call it Active Answers and it's designed to give users up-to-the-minute information on certain search queries.

The first Active Answers to be released is flight status info. Simply query the name of the airline and the flight number and you'll get the latest status on the flight.

Check it out:

As you can see, the data was provided by Farecast, a travel search site Microsoft acquired last year. Last November, Microsoft added flight information to Instant Answers, which is also provided in the main search results.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 24, 2009, 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Updates Insights for Search Keyword Metric Tool

Last year, Google launched "Insights for Search," a tool that aids with keyword research and overall search marketing research. Now, they've updated the tool with the following features:

New data sources - Googl has added more data from Google News, Image and Product Search sites.
Category suggestions - Insights for Search will now suggest categories that your search terms could be classified under.
Metros for the U.S. - When you look at the geographic data in the U.S., you can drill down into metropolitan areas.

Check out this Insights for Search geographic map showing the interest of search term, "coffee." Check out these maps from state then metro then city:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 24, 2009, 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SES New York is a Search Expo as well as an SEM Conference

Most of the attention at SES New York is focused on the SEM conference. But the must-attend industry event is a search expo, as well.

Google booth at SES New York 2008.jpg If you look over the list of participating sponsors and exhibitors, you'll see Premier Plus Sponsors like iProspect and Google as well as Premier Sponsors like Ask Sponsored Listings, iContact, Microsoft and WebTrends. But as you scroll down the list of close to 100 sponsors and exhibitors, you'll see lots of other names, too.

As I mentioned yesterday, I plan to visit the booths of the SES sponsors and exhibitors. I always find useful products and services -- not to mention the trade-show tchotchke and promotional swag.

In fact, I generally discover a couple of under-reported stories in the Expo Hall.

For example, at SES New York 2008, I thought one of the under-reported stories was LifeTips, which is a content design and content development company working on ebooks and other products. They had just launched an SEO content grader. So, I invited Byron White, the founder of LifeTips, to give us his escalator pitch. (This is a lot like an elevator pitch, except the escalators at the Hilton New York are a lot faster than the elevators.)

Lifetips Escalator Pitch, SES NY 2008

However, there's no way to know in advance which booths will contain under-reported stories at SES New York 2009. (Although, it won't hurt to check out Booth #1302, because WebTrends and Business.com are sponsoring the ultimate conference give-away: A brand new Smart Car.)

Nevertheless, it turns out that some of the exhibitors have submitted proflies to Business Wire's Virtual Press Office (VPO). So, that increases the odds that there is gold in them thar hills. Check it out for yourself.

Company: Click Forensics, Inc.
Booth: 1108
Click Forensics is the industry leader in scoring, auditing and improving traffic quality for the online advertising community. By optimizing every step in the online advertising process, Click Forensics maximizes ROI for advertisers, publishers, and ad networks. Click Forensics' traffic quality management solutions are relevant for advertisers seeking to reduce costs and improve conversions rates, ad networks seeking to attract and retain advertisers and improve overall eCPM, and publishers seeking to attract quality advertisers and increase earnings per click. For over 5 years the online advertising industry has relied on Click Forensics as the independent authority on traffic quality and click fraud.

Company: DOCLIX
Booth: 225
DOCLIX owns and operates AdSide, a pay-per-click ad network which brings search-level performance to content-targeted ads. It provides advertisers and publishers with tools to maximize revenue and growth.
AdSide places user-activated text ads on premium sites. Its patent-pending Two-Step Click™ lead qualification model ensures that advertisers pay only for twice-qualified leads, generating higher conversion rates and ROI. AdSide expands publishers' real estate, providing them with a new revenue stream that does not dilute user experience. Our custom ad formats and yield optimization technology maximize click-through rates and effective CPMs. Premium publishers are pre-screened for content and are required to have over 1 million unique visitors.

Company: Ektron
Booth: 120
Ektron, a global leader in Web content management software and services, empowers organizations to maximize their business performance online. With tools and functionality that maximize SEM, SEO and social media optimization strategies for SMBs and enterprises alike, Ektron CMS400.NET delivers organizations' valuable content to the people who are looking for it. Ektron empowers developers and non-technical business users. Developers can take advantage of built-in Server Controls to deploy a Web site out of the box or customize the deployment using CMS400.NET's API, addressing all of the business's SEO needs. Business users benefit from an intuitive user interface for managing Web site content and messaging. In addition to SEO tools and core content management, CMS400.NET ships with a wide array of functionality, including social networking, Web 2.0, SEO and synchronization tools.

Company: Emailvision
Booth: 322
Emailvision has become the global market and technology leader in on-demand software for email marketing automation. Used daily by over 1500 companies worldwide, the Emailvision flagship product, Campaign Commander, is the benchmark tool for e-commerce and publishing. Sold as a subscription service it enables clients to improve message deliverability, lower costs and focus on their online retention marketing strategies without important technology investments. The company has offices in major international markets including the US, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands and Spain. Emailvision (ALEMV) was founded in 1999 and is listed on the Euronext/Alternext stock exchange.

Company: eZanga
Booth: 121
eZanga (www.eZanga.com), a search engine marketing company and search engine founded by Beth and Richard Kahn in 2003, provides online advertisers with local, regional, and national advertising focused on generating high return on investment and users with access to a search engine powered by eZanga's proprietary Meta Search technology, which pulls data from numerous, unique content sources and displays the results in an easy-to-read and relevant fashion. In 2008, eZanga was recognized by Inc. magazine's Inc. 500 as the fastest-growing company in its home state of Delaware.

eZanga Escalator Pitch, SES NY 2008

Company: GoECart
Booth: 213
GoECart is the clear choice for serious merchants focused on creating and rapidly growing a successful online business. With integration with industry-leading partners like Google Checkout, Paypal, Amazon.com, Linkshare, UPS, Google Analytics, Campaigner and LivePerson, GoECart is the most connected e-commerce solution on the market. GoECart combines 250+ powerful features and On-Demand Tier 1 hosting with a delightful shopping experience for customers - all at a surprisingly affordable price. GoECart is THE MOST Search Engine Friendly Ecommerce Software on the market, bar none! GoECart serves a diverse customer base ranging from small- and medium-sized enterprises to Fortune 500 companies. www.GoECart.com

Shopping Cart Software SEO with goecart.com

Company: iCrossing
Booth: 100
iCrossing is a global digital marketing company that combines talent and technology to help world-class brands find and connect with their customers. The company blends best-in-class digital marketing services - including paid search, search engine optimization, Web development, social media, mobile, research and analytics - to create integrated digital marketing programs that engage consumers and drive ROI. iCrossing's client base includes such recognized brands as Epson America, Toyota, Travelocity and 40 Fortune 500 companies, including The Coca-Cola Company and Office Depot. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company has 580 employees in 12 offices in the U.S. and Europe.

Company: ideaLaunch
Booth: 202
Valuable, relevant content is what your company needs to attract and retain customers. ideaLaunch offers a suite of content marketing services that hundreds of clients are using to gain the trust and win the business of online customers. From content creation to content optimization to content testing to content performance to content sponsorship, ideaLaunch offers a full range of content marketing services, solutions and resources. Start delivering fresh, relevant content to your customers with the revolutionaries at ideaLaunch. And improve your company's mind share, market share and profit share.

Company: Ingenio Inc.
Booth: 315
Ingenio, Inc. pioneered Pay Per Call in 2004 as a way to connect millions of buyers and sellers around the world through the combination of the Internet and the telephone. Today Ingenio partners with leading providers in Web and mobile search, online directories, vertical content, and directory assistance to deliver live phone leads to any type of business. For more information, please visit www.ingenio.com.

Company: Local.com
Booth: 1110
Local.com (NASDAQ: LOCM) is the largest local search network in the United States. The company uses patented technologies to provide over 19 million consumers each month with the most relevant search results for local businesses, products and services on Local.com and over 700 regional media sites. Businesses can target ready-to-purchase consumers using a variety of advertising products. To advertise, visit http://corporate.local.com/advertisewithus or call 1-888-857-6722. For more information visit: www.local.com or http://corporate.local.com/.

Company: Marchex, Inc.
Booth: 201
Marchex, Inc. is a leading local search and performance advertising company. Marchex's innovative advertising platform delivers search- and call-based marketing products and services for local and national advertisers. Marchex's local search network, one of the largest online, helps consumers make better, more informed local decisions through its content-rich Web sites that reach tens of millions of unique visitors each month.

Chad Schott of Marchex on Local Search at SES NY 2008

Company: Onward Search
Booth: 309
Onward Search is the nation's leading provider of internet marketing and creative services talent. Onward Search specializes in placing search marketing, graphic design, web development, and related creative services and technology professionals to companies nationwide. Onward Search provides their customers with the ability to rapidly source the best talent in the marketplace, so they can successfully deliver against their creative services, online marketing, and technology initiatives. Onward Search offers a full range of recruiting, staffing, and talent management solutions to include temporary staffing, consulting, and permanent placement options to ensure our customers have access to the right talent to get the job done.

Company: SearchIgnite
Booth: 320
SearchIgnite is a leading provider of paid search and performance media optimization solutions that enable large, sophisticated marketers to achieve their online goals faster and smarter. The company's platform gives advertisers an advanced suite of tools to manage, optimize and report on their paid search campaigns in one central dashboard. In addition, marketers who use SearchIgnite have the ability to gather insights into the relationship between media channels, enabling them to spend smarter. Some of the world's leading brands and advertising agencies depend on SearchIgnite technology to power their online marketing campaigns. More information can be found at http://www.searchignite.com/.

Company: SLI Systems
Booth: 303
SLI Systems provides site search, site navigation and user-generated SEO services for online retail and content-rich websites. These solutions are built with patented Learning Search technology - an intelligent search system that learns from customer behavior to increase sales and conversions. Learning Search enhances the user experience while delivering valuable insights on visitor activity, and provides ecommerce sites with advanced merchandising capabilities and intuitive navigation. SLI's Site Champion service creates optimised pages to increase a retailer's visibility in natural search engine listings and increase site traffic. Customers like FTD, Tupperware, ULTA, and hundreds more benefit from SLI Systems' search technology.

Company: TMP Directional Marketing
Booth: 209
TMP Directional Marketing (TMPDM) is the largest local search marketing agency, offering online, offline and mobile local advertising solutions to top national brands. Providing clients search with a local focus, the agency understands the local nuances that help national merchants reach local customers. Combining its years of success in Yellow Pages advertising with online search expertise gained as a former unit of Monster Worldwide, TMPDM serves hundreds of national advertising clients, including nearly 100 Fortune 500 companies. TMPDM (www.tmpdm.com) is headquartered in New York with more than 500 employees and 15 offices in the U.S. and Canada.

Company: Wpromote Inc.
Booth: 112
Wpromote prides itself in Superior Search Engine Marketing. From two employees in 2001 to over forty the company has experienced unwavering growth and continuous recognition for its exceptional service to each and every client. As a two-time Inc. 500 honoree, Google Adwords Qualified Company and recipient of countless other accolades, clients are assured that The Best Search Starts Here, at Wpromote. Since its inception Wpromote has dedicated itself to a single mission statement: help businesses succeed on the web. With unmatched experience in search marketing and an unrivaled dedication to our clients' results, Wpromote always stands out above the crowd.

Company: YELLOWPAGES.COM
Booth: 321
"Need something?" For more than 125 years, consumers have trusted the Yellow Pages to deliver comprehensive local business information. And today, wherever, however and whenever they "Need something" local, they use YELLOWPAGES.COM. YELLOWPAGES.COM connects consumers to local businesses across the three screens they use most - Web, mobile and TV through AT&T U-verse services. As one of today's leading local search sites, YELLOWPAGES.COM provides comprehensive local business information, maps, driving directions, videos, user reviews and more. And new mobile features make it easier than ever to find information on the go.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 24, 2009, 6:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Did-It Does It Again - Uninformed Controversy As Publicity

It seems that being controversial is a major way to get new business in the Web 3.0 world over at Did-It, if the company's editor-in-chief Steve Baldwin's article about this week's SES conference is any indication.

Remember, one of the company's founders, Dave Pasternak's statements about SEO "not being rocket science" and a company that can't get you into the top 5 on Google as worthless. His statements met strong criticism and obviously got the company a lot of attention and links which they most probably redirected to improve their ranking. Hey "not rocket science" but crafty manipulation works.

So this morning as SES NY begins they are at it again. An article that cleverly takes shots at the conference in a backhand way got my attention and no doubt will hit the major online blogs and publications. But what is it saying? Baldwin lists 10 things no longer being discussed at the panels this week. His "lost buzzwords" that apparently he spent hours looking over previous agendas to compare against this week's panels.

First, and foremost, he should have spent more time looking at the current agenda and not just the titles. SES has moved away from titling their panels - Paid Inclusion, Widgets, etc - obviously the audience is more educated about our industry and can comprehend more interesting titles than SEO 101. But let's look at the points one by one.

1. Paid Inclusion - Yahoo still offers it but it is now branded as Search Submit and has been discussed at many recent panels - hell I did one last month in London and was the least attended of all sessions. Guess people know about this long standing service and want to know more about other things. Generally this is mentioned during advanced ppc since you have to pay per click once indexed. I wonder if Did-It has that in its proprietorial conversion tracking software?

2. Blogs, boards and posts - True boards do not get as much play as they used to - guess the no follow stuff has killed a lot of the impact - but Steve in case you did not know Twitter is microblogging. Plus many sites are now run on blogging software as CMS which gets attention at sessions. Those "rocket science" methods you guys used to do SEO are called spam now. But the "Online Communities" session covers this area and the "Blogging for Business" and "SEO Through Blogs & Feeds" sessions he just must have missed.

3. Viral marketing - funny - kind of like what you are doing with your article - so where do I stick the Mentos? Viral marketing is very much alive and living in social media - but then it is not paid search so I guess you have missed that one over at Did-It. The "Branding Without Borders" is viral session - guess we should have written the title in 25 characters so Did-It could understand it.

4. Click Fraud - well I am on the Click Quality Council and we have a dinner, but as far as panels... I am sure it will be discussed at "The State of Search" and "The Advanced Paid Search" sessions. "In these hard times, it's more fun to talk about silly tweets than evil cheats," he notes. But could it be they are becoming an alternative that may impact click fraud?

5. Rich Media - there are sessions on "Beyond Googling", "Update on Social Media Optimization" - Steve - YouTube is social in case you "didn't" know. "Small Voices, Big Impact" and "Thinking Outside Your Website" are two that come to mind that cover this directly.

6. Podcast optimization - well podcasts are now videos and most are hosted on YouTube. There are plenty of sessions about them - try "Video Search Engine Optimization: 2009 and Beyond".

7. Search Convergence - you are reaching here and I hope the Did-It software is better updated than your understanding of industry terms. "Universal and Blended Search" may be the session for you.

8. Widgets and Gadgets - okay at this stage I know Steve spent no time reading the agenda for this conference. Mobile apps are discussed at "Getting Mobilized! Mobile Marketing Strategies" and "SearchAppalooza - Kick-Ass Apps Contest & Talking Search Beyond Google" jump off the conference agenda.

9. Pay Per Call - yes was predicted to be big and tanked - but including a phone number in your PPC works and gets you free clients. And there is an interesting session on "Pay Per Conversation" but not quite on topic.

10. Cashing out your company - well yes in these economic times it is harder and the model has shifted, but companies are still being bought and sold. The conference this year does cover the new buzz term of economic hardships.

I know Steve will cry he was discussing "buzz terms" but really mate. Do a little better journalistic research before weighing in with an attention grabbing article - your founder should have told you that... but then he has disappeared like the frogs you used to hand out at the booth - guess they lost their buzz too.

I may suggest you attend this session - "First Timer's Guide to SES and SEM".

Posted by Frank Watson on March 23, 2009, 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Meebo to Offer Social Ads to Partner Sites

In the second quarter of 2009, instant messaging client Meebo will begin offering its social ad platform to partner sites. So far, over 40 online publishers will participate including:

CafeMom

Sugar Publishing

myYearbook

Flixster

AddictingGames

Bleacher Report

dotblu

FanPop

ibeatyou

OperationSports

WhateverLife

Current TV

CrispyGamer

DailyStrength.org

GGL Global Gaming

IGN.com

Internet Brands

StarPulse

Meebo says their key ad metrics include:

10x higher click rates than typical ads on social media sites
1% click rates on average
1:35 seconds average time spent with the ad content
10% of users that engage then share the branded experience with their friends

"Meebo ads work for brand marketers by providing a platform that delivers an abundance of social actions that can be measured," said Carter Brokaw, chief revenue officer, Meebo. "Today, we're announcing that our advertising partners will be able to extend their buys across our syndication network of tier-one content sites, social networks, entertainment sites, blogs, and gaming partners. Our syndication partners will increase their revenue potential because Meebo ads are highly engaging and integrated into the communication experience to drive actions. The result is increased scale for social campaigns that deliver results for both marketers and partners."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 23, 2009, 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ad pepper Expands Semantic Network to U.S.

International online ad network, ad pepper media, is expanding its iSense Network to the United States. The ad network offers semantic placement of online display ads across 3,000 content categories.

iSense relies on patented technology which is based on 11 years of research by linguist and professor, David Crystal. ad pepper was founded in the late 90s in Europe.

"Every word in the English language has nearly three meanings, making sense disambiguation key to adequate and relevant contextual ad placement," said Sacha Carton, President of iSense and Director of the Board for ad pepper media. "Our semantic approach to the analysis and classification of all the content on a webpage makes contextually relevant page-level targeting of display ads across a broad range of structured and unstructured online media a very effective process."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 23, 2009, 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Craigslist Beats MySpace in Top Searched Terms Last Week; eBay Drives Paid Listings

Hitwise is reporting that Craigslist beat MySpace in the top searched terms last week in the U.S. Their one year graph shows MySpace on the decline with Craigslist and Facebook on a parallel rise:

Meanwhile, eBay is driving the most traffic from paid search listings in the U.S.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 23, 2009, 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mainstream Publishers Want Google to Change their Algorithm to Favor Them

AdAge has a story about how some mainstream publishers want Google to favor them in their algorithm. To which most of SEW readers would probably say, "Welcome to my world!"

I have just one question for the publishers. "If Google came to you and asked you only for favorable coverage of their brand, would you give it to them?"

Some of the publishers' points are valid. At times, Google's results - especially when it comes to current events - can be a bit outdated. Mainstream publishers want to see links at the top of the results for their stories.

Why their stories over bloggers or other non-mainstream sites? ~~BBC~~ The New York Times argues that because they have a man on the ground in a place like Gaza, that their site should trump blogger commentary, for example.

But the very fact that the ~~BBC~~ The New York Times and mainstream publishers are lobbying Google suggests that their problem lies in their own business model. Either they are refusing to get involved with SEO and/or paid search, or they are not producing content that people want - even with eyes on the ground. Or both.

And that's why not all publishers are complaining. As Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff told AdAge:

Sometimes it's true that you'd rather get what The New York Times has to say about something rather than a host of bloggers. But more interestingly it's not always true. And it is in fact less and less true.

Of course, the biggest irony of all is the rocky history Google has had with newspapers. Some publishers have sued Google for copyright issues. Now that print is dying and consumers are increasingly going online for news, they want Google's favor.

Still, Google may be listening. A recent algorithm change does seem to favor brands, though Google denies it.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 23, 2009, 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

ValueClick Debuts Tailored Banner Ad Option

Performance ad network ValueClick has announced the availability of a new option that allows advertisers to create ads tailored to individual consumers. Dubbed "ActiveAds," the display ads can be customized messages without having to manage separate creative units.

ValueClick says targeting for ActiveAds is based on anonymous information. The ads are dynamically created based on the client or ValueClick Media.

"ActiveAds is extremely well suited for our clients who believe one ad does not fit all. Too long have clients with a wide variety of products been forced to show the same content to all prospects, despite the wealth of data which can be used to improve performance by tailoring ad creative to each individual consumer," said Bill Todd, general manager of ValueClick Media.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 23, 2009, 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Q&A with Bev Thorne, SVP Marketing, Century 21 Real Estate

In 2008, Century 21 Real Estate LLC spent less than 10% of its advertising budget online. But, earlier this year, the franchisor of the world's largest residential real estate sales organization said it would cancel most of its offline advertising in favor of ads placed on the Web.

Century 21 logo.jpg On Tuesday, Bev Thorne, the Senior Vice President of Marketing for Century 21, is speaking at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York conference during the session entitled, "Budget Migration: Going Digital Without Impacting Your Brand."

The session is part of the Search and C-Level Executive Track. The moderator is Jason Ferrara, SVP of Sales and Marketing for Elixir Interactive, and the other speakers on the panel are Pattiann McAdams-Russell, Executive Director of Avon's Online Division and Crispin Sheridan, the Senior Director of Search Marketing Strategy at SAP Marketing.

According to the latest SEMPO Annual State of Search Survey, search engine marketing is poaching budget from other marketing channels, especially from offline marketing channels. This represents a marked difference from 2005, when budget was shifted mostly from online media such as web development and affiliate marketing, but is consistent with spending in the past two years.

The SEMPO survey also found a shift in terms of what budgets are cannibalized in favor of search engine marketing. Over a quarter of advertisers report they are shifting budget away from print magazines and another 21% report their budget is shifted from direct mail. Rounding out the trend towards cannibalizing print, 19% of advertisers report they are shifting budget from their print newspaper advertising.

All this puts Bev Thorne at the epicenter of one of the most significant industry trends.

In her role as Senior Vice President of Marketing for Century 21, Thorne leads the planning and execution of the domestic marketing strategies in support of market share growth for the largest real estate franchise organization in the world. She is responsible for leading the strategy development and program execution of all consumer, broker and agent marketing programs.

Thorne earned her MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and has worked extensively in the areas of consumer marketing, strategic branding and event marketing management over her 20-plus year career. Before joining Century 21, she was with JPMorgan Chase & Company, where she served as senior vice president, customer marketing for the Home Finance business unit. Prior to that, Thorne worked at AT&T for nearly two decades in a series of increasingly senior roles, planning and executing marketing and communications strategies nationwide.

I interviewed Thorne late last week via email. Here are my Qs and her As:

Q: You're speaking at the session, "Budget Migration: Going Digital Without Impacting Your Brand." What information do you need to know about migrating budget to digital without impacting your brand awareness or the equity you have built up in your brand?

A: As we planned our marketing campaign for 2009, we made a firm commitment to spend our advertising dollars where they would be the most effective in driving leads to the nearly 100,000 sales professionals within the CENTURY 21 System. First we looked at our own data with regard to ROI on our online spend. The data made the decision to transition our national television advertising to online a very easy decision. From 2007 through 2008, our online advertising yielded a 237% increase in leads and a 62% reduction in cost per lead year over year.

Q: The move to a predominantly digital marketing strategy can be overwhelming. What advice to you have for other marketers planning to go digital?

A: Plan enough time to socialize the benefits of going digital with your key stakeholders to ensure you have maximum buy in before announcing the move to the general public.
By empowering key stakeholders with information through effective communication you can help them to understand that online marketing enables a more targeted approach to the consumer.

Q: Migrating from staid traditional channels to the open waters of the Web can be daunting. Did it take courage to start moving significant resources away from TV, radio and print and into search, social, display and email?

A: As you may know CENTURY 21 was the first national real estate franchise on television and now we continue our forward-looking market leadership as we enhance our online advertising. Market leaders must be willing to make the decisions necessary to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace for their products, services and sales professionals. We are confident that increased online advertising will benefit our brokers, agents and most importantly, the consumer.

Q: How does Century 21 Real Estate measure results -- especially for search, display, email and social media?

A: We carefully track and measure our cost per lead in every channel where we advertise and market. Our goal is to maximize our investment by continually increasing our leads and reducing our costs per lead. The greatest thing about online advertising is that it enables us to track the effectiveness of our ads which helps us to better understand what is working and rapidly respond and make corrections and enhancements where our messaging is not as effective.

Q: Are there any lessons that you learned as well as any metrics or tools needed to gauge the success of a balanced digital marketing program that you'd like to share?

A: Given the fluid nature of technology and its applications for real estate marketing, the only constant is change. If there is one lesson to be learned, it is that by constantly innovating in the online marketing space you can develop a more agile marketing platform to effectively insulate your brand from dynamic shifts in how consumers prefer to be reached; thereby, cogently positioning your product, service or sales professionals for long-term success.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 23, 2009, 7:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

SES New York 2009 Offers an Expo Only Pass (Free in Advance)

Check it out: If you read the fine print in the rates and registration details for SES New York 2009 you will see an Expo Only Pass -- which is free in advance or $50 on-site.

Business dot com at SES New York 2008.jpg Today is Monday, which is "in advance" of the conference sessions, which start tomorrow on Tuesday. Get it? Got it? Good.

So, what can you see with an Expo Only Pass?

First of all, you can get into the keynotes and Orion Panels. So, if you attend SES New York on Tuesday, March 24, 2009, then you can get into hear the opening keynote by Guy Kawasaki, the author of "Reality Check" and Founding Partner of Garage Technology Ventures. And why might you want to do that? The title of his keynote is "Twitter as a Tool for Social Media." That's worth schlepping over to SES New York to hear.

Now, here's the stuff that is hidden in the agenda that you'll also want to know about.

The Expo Only Pass gets you into the Expo Hall (duh) and the "free events."

This includes the Express Site Clinics. This means you can walk right up to Booth #1122 and get your Web site reviewed live by one of the SES experts at these PowerPoint free, interactive clinics. This includes:
• An "Express Search Usability Clinic," which will be held from 1:00 to 2:00 pm by Shari Thurow, Founder and SEO Director of Omni Marketing Interactive. Get one-on-one advise for usability, design, copy, link development, and any technical issues that may prevent your Web site from receiving high quality search engine traffic and visitor conversions.
• A "Power PPC Advertising Clinic," which will be held from 2:00 to 3:00 pm by David Szetela, CEO of Clix Marketing. Get your Google AdWords PPC advertising campaigns and landing pages expertly analyzed, with specific recommendations for improvement and optimization. Or just come to watch and learn a wide range of tips and best practices!
• And a "CPA Optimization Station," which will be held from 3:00 to 4:00 pm by Jonathan Mendez, Founder and CEO of RAMP Digital. With advertising dollars more accountable than ever optimizing your Cost Per Acquisition or Cost per Action (CPA) has never been more important. Take advantage of this rare opportunity to sit with an optimization guru as he finds ways to improve your ROI.

But wait, there's more!

From 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, you can go to the Outrider Career Center. Yes, you can bring your resume to SES! Outrider is hosting on-site interviews for senior, mid-level and entry-level positions. To schedule an interview in advance or submit your resume, visit www.outrider.com. On-site sign-up, walk-ins and informational interviews welcome. It is located in the Bryant Suite at the Hilton New York.

Or, head over to the Lyris booth (#1004) in the Expo Hall and simplify your marketing efforts and optimize campaign ROI. While you're there, pick up their FREE guide, 9 Tips for Organizing Your PPC Campaigns, and enter for a chance to WIN a $100 gift card.

From 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., attend the networking cocktail reception sponsored by OnDialog. It's being held in the Expo Hall.

And at 6:15 pm, head over to Sutton South in the Hilton New York for another networking party being held by SEMPO.

If Tuesday isn't good for you, then how about Wednesday, March 25, 2009?

An Expo Only Pass will get you into the "Orion Panel: The State of Search - A Maturing Marketplace or Poised for More Growth?" Is the search marketplace on the verge of maturing in North America or will advertising dollars continue to flow into search? As ROI and performance become increasingly important, will search gain a larger share of advertising revenues or is search generally or at least across some categories, becoming too expensive and competitive? Can search make an argument for value beyond pure performance and results? Will further insights and performance gains be realized as they relate to an overall SEM+SEO strategy for a brand or has the industry discovered most of the tricks?

This panel takes a hard look at the current value proposition of search and what the future holds for the North American search marketplace. The moderator is Kevin M. Ryan, SES Advisory Board Chair and CMO of WebVisible, Inc. The speakers are:
-- James Colborn, Director of Microsoft Advertising at Microsoft.
-- Robert Murray, CEO of iProspect.
-- Steven Kaufman, SVP Media Director of Digitas.
-- Jon Diorio, Group Product Manager of AdWords & Monetization Products at Google.
-- Jeffrey Pruitt, President of SEMPO.

And there is also a second batch of Express Site Clinics on Wednesday. This includes:
• "Small Changes, Big Results," which will be held from noon to 1:00pm by Matthew Bailey, an SES Advisory Board member and President of Site Logic Marketing. If you are particularly daring, bring the access to your analytics (if they are hosted online), and Matt will really dive in!
• "Your Baby Is Ugly - Landing Page Mini-Critiques," which will be held from 2:00 to 3:00 pm by Tim Ash, President of SiteTuners. Yes, these complimentary mini-critiques are by the same by landing page optimization expert who wrote the bestselling book Landing Page Optimization from Wiley Press.
• "Dave Naylor Search Marketing," which will be held from 3:00 to 4:00 pm by, wait for it, David Naylor, SEO of Bronco. Ever wanted the chance to have an industry leading SEO take a look at your website, to get an honest and often brutal opinion on whether it is any good? Well, Dave is available to do a mini site clinic for you. Does that work for you?

Meanwhile, you'll still have a chance to go to the Outrider Career Center on Wednesday.

And if you go over to Booth #1302 on the Expo Hall, you'll have a chance to win a brand
new Smart Car! WebTrends and Business.com are sponsoring the ultimate conference give-away. One winner will be selected by random drawing. Open to all conference and expo hall attendees. Winner must be present at the time of the drawing.

There you have it. And while you're there, visit the booths of the approximately 100 sponsors and exhibitors. Hey, I plan to. I always find useful products and services -- not to mention the trade-show tchotchke and promotional swag that I used to bring home. (My wife has declared "No more t-shirts" and my kids have more freebies than they know what to do with.)

But, before I sign off, let me circle back to Tim Ash one more time. He seems to be everywhere this year. But, I don't want you to think that I'm plugging his book -- without making him dance for the plublicity.

In fact, at SES New York 2008, I made him do just that. Check it out below.

Optimizing Landing Pages -- Tim Ash's Tips and... Footwork

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 23, 2009, 7:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Complies with Street View Takedown Requests in the UK

Google has launched Street View in the UK and while many are happy to virtually explore, some are angered by the images that are now publicly available. Google is complying with the less-than-thrilled by blacking out images of the disappointed and their homes.

When an image is blacked out, a message stating "This image is not available" appears instead.

Still, Google continues to photograph the UK. They've already photographed 22,360 miles of streets in 25 UK cities.

Recently, Google won a lawsuit brought against them by an unhappy couple whose home had been photographed in the U.S.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 20, 2009, 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

LinkedIn Enables RSS Feeds to Enhance Sharing in Groups

LinkedIn is allowing groups on the professional social network to add RSS feeds to aid in news and information sharing. News sharing was first allowed last November and has quickly caught on.

Group managers can utilize RSS by adding an ATOM feed, RSS feed or a web site URL. If you're in a group where a manager has enabled RSS, you can find feeds under the news tab in "Latest News."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 20, 2009, 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Launches YouTube App for Windows Mobile and Nokia S60 Phones

When the iPhone launched in the summer of 2007 (and a year before the iPhone app store was launched), one of the highlights was that it came standard with a YouTube application. Then, of course, when T-Mobile made the Android-powered G1 available, YouTube was accessible by those mobile users as well. Now, more users of even more phones are getting the ability to experience a YouTube application.

Phones using the Windows Mobile operating system can now download the YouTube mobile app. Additionally, phones in the Nokia S60 series can get the app. A list of the included phones can be found here.

Here's what else to expect, per the Official Google blog:

Speed: Faster application start-up, searching, and video loading. For even quicker access, add the application icon to your phone's home screen.
Video quality: The application automatically detects your device and network capabilities, and selects the highest available stream quality based on those. Videos will look sharper and sound clearer than ever.
WiFi: Improved streaming over WiFi to support a wider range of networks.
More robust streaming: Improved buffering ensures that videos will play even in weak coverage areas.
Easy video viewing: Once installed, no configuration is required outside of the application. We've worked really hard to make video playback "just work".

Here's a video showing off the YouTube app:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 20, 2009, 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Microsoft Search News Out of IE 8 and MIX09

Microsoft has had a couple major events this week and both have implications for search. First up, they release the next version of their web browser, Internet Explorer 8. It was announced at MIX09, which had additional search news covered at the end of this post.

With the release of IE8 comes the Live Search accelerators.

Once you've installed IE 8 and the accelerator, all you have to do is highlight a word on a page you're viewing, click on the arrow that appears and click on the option you want. If you're shopping and highlight a product, you can click the "Shop and Save" option. If you highlight an address, you can click on the "Map with Live Search" option. A translation accelerator is another option if you're viewing a page in a foreign language.

There were three other search news announcements that came out of MIX09.

Virtual Earth Silverlight Control - Made available to developers today, Silverlight is now letting Virtual Earth developers have access to new features like "deep zoom" navigation, which improves the mapping experience.

Project Silk Road - This project has been a great success. Announced at PubCon last November, the API is already serving 3 billion requests per month. Over 5,000 applications for the broad beta have been received.

Microsoft's work with job search site CareerBuilder.com - The largest job search site in the United States is now using the Live Search API and Silverlight, allowing employers to search candidate backgrounds from places like Facebook, blogs, online articles, etc., all in one place.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 20, 2009, 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The KGB is Available to Answer Your Questions (Via Text Search)

I have the tv on in the background while I blog from the comfort of my North Carolina home, and happened to catch a commercial advertising the KGB.

WHAT!?!?!?! I've seen enough spy shows to know that the KGB are Russian spies.

Well not anymore. The KGB has apparently changed its mission to providing a text search service. The U.S. number is 542542, which is quite close to rival text search company Cha Cha's number of 242242.

I like text search services because someone else does the searching while I go on with my business. Cha Cha usually takes about 5-6 minutes to return an answer. So, I decided to test it out....

99 Cents per answer? In addition to text messaging rates? I can tell I won't be using this service often. But let's see how they do, and how they stack up against Cha Cha and Google's Text Service. I asked each of the services the same question:

"Which team has won the most men's NCAA basketball championships?"

KGB took 15 minutes to answer.

With Cha Cha, I get an answer in 19 minutes, which surprises me. In the past, I've gotten answers as quickly as 5-6 minutes. (I also realize that they've adding advertising to their text search. Notice the Walmart ad. I was wondering how they'd monetize.)

Google Text Search is a non-starter. Check this out:

With mobile internet on the rise, it's nice to see some good competition in the text search space, especially since Google doesn't appear poised to play.

In the meantime, it's entertaining to see what other mobile users are asking via text, which you can learn on the homepages of KGB.com and ChaCha.com.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 20, 2009, 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Super Bowl Ad Creates Spike in Activity at Hulu in February

Okay, so maybe Super Bowl ads still work.

Hulu saw a significant spike in activity after it aired an ad during this year's Super Bowl, "which both ignited the site's popularity and highlighted the growing mainstream appeal of online video," Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.

Hulu, the online video joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp, surged 55% to 7.8 million unique visitors in February, driven in large part by its TV ad campaign starring Alec Baldwin. This growth helped Hulu secure the #2 spot in comScore's Top-Gaining Properties ranking this month. For figures on video viewing at Hulu, including videos viewed in its syndicated network of sites, check out the most recent comScore Video Metrix ranking in the press release entitled, "YouTube Surpasses 100 Million U.S. Viewers for the First Time."

Although Hulu may be celebrating its 7.8 million unique visitors in February, YouTube had 100.9 million viewers that month.

And, to put this in context, 95.4 million people watched the Pittsburgh Steelers' dramatic win over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII -- the second-most-watched Super Bowl broadcast ever and the third-most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history.

Meanwhile, the average YouTube viewer watched 62.6 videos in February. And the duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes. If you do the math, that's 219.1 minutes -- or more than 3.6 hours of viewing.

That's as long as the Super Bowl itself -- including the half-time show!

So, yes, Hulu is growing quickly. And the fact that the Super Bowl was broadcast on NBC may not have helped Hulu get the "friends and family" ad rate -- which was $3 million for 30 seconds of fame. Oh, and Hulu's commercials were 60-seconds long.

Hulu's Superbowl Commercial - 60sec

Hmmm. Do you think this explains why Hulu's Superbowl Commercial is also posted on HuluDotCom's Channel on YouTube?

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 20, 2009, 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Checkout Now Offers Subscriptions

Google Checkout is now offering subscriptions for sellers who wish to offer them. The option is available through the Beta Features page. Merchants can set up recurring billing through the API as well.

If you're not familiar, Google Checkout offers shopping cart functionality in a way similar to PayPal, which is owned by eBay. In April 2007, eBay teamed up with Yahoo to challenge Google Checkout, part of the ongoing search wars.

Last October, Google Checkout allowed multiple items per purchase. Recently, Google Checkout announced a new (higher) fee structure that will be in effect this May.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 20, 2009, 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter at SES New York! Oh, my!

Why are Facebook, YouTube and Twitter featured on the SES New York agenda? Isn't this a natural as finding lions, and tigers, and bears in the forest?

Wizard of Oz movie poster.jpg According to comScore qSearch 2.0, there were 2.7 billion expanded search queries conducted on YouTube and 206 million conducted at Facebook in February 2009. And according to Hitwise Intelligence, the top websites visited after people use Twitter are...wait for it...Google, Facebook, TwitPic, MySpace, Twitter Search, Yahoo! Mail and YouTube.

Okay, so Twitter's clickstream profile is much closer to a social network than to a search engine. But I could say that about YouTube, too. And Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in October 2006. And last April Fool's Day, InfoWorld joked about Google buying Facebook, because Google was losing too many of its top people to Facebook. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, the Motley Fool has just published an article entitled, "Google, Just Buy Twitter Already."

So, it's really not that surprising to find Facebook, and YouTube, and Twitter at SES New York. We're not in Kansas anymore.

In fact, social media has worked its way into the agenda in lots of places and over several years.

On Monday, March 23, there is a training workshop entitled, "Corporate Blog Strategies: Blog Your Way to Success." It's being taught by Jennifer Evans Laycock, Director of Social Media at SiteLogic, and Matt Bailey, an SES Advisory Board member and the President of SiteLogic.

On Tuesday, March 24, the opening keynote at SES New York 2009 is entitled, "Twitter as a Tool for Social Media." It's being given by Guy Kawasaki, the author of Reality Check and Founding Partner of Garage Technology Ventures.

Pauline Ores, an SES Advisory Board member and Senior Marketing Manager of Social Media Engagement at IBM Corporation, is speaking at the "Beyond Googling: Where Will Your Customers Be Searching in Five Years?" session.

And Matthew Liu, the Product Manager for YouTube Sponsored Videos, will be speaking at the "Video Search Engine Optimization: 2009 and Beyond" session.

On Wednesday, March 25, the "Small Voices, Big Impact: Social Media for the Little Guy" session is another example of social media working its way into the agenda. And the speakers include: Amber Naslund, the Director of Community at Radian6; Jennifer Evans Laycock, Christina Kerley, Marketing Specialist at ckEpiphany; and Tim Kendall, Director of Monetization at Facebook.

And there is a session entitled, "Social Media Marketing for Brand Building" that features Dave Evans, VP at Digital Voodoo; Hollis Thomases, Founder of WebAdvantage.net; and Harry J. Gold, CEO of Overdrive Interactive.

Oh, and there's a "Facebook Workshop: Harnessing the Social Graph." The speakers are Kasey Galang, Product Marketing Manager of Facebook and Rebecca Sawyer, Online Sales Operations Manager of Facebook.

On Thursday, March 26, there isn't even an effort to disguise the social media sessions. In fact, there is a "Social Media and Blogging Track."
• The first session in this track is entitled, "An Update on Social Media Optimization." And one of the speakers is Dave Snyder, Co-Founder of Search & Social.
• The second session is entitled, "4 Views of Social Media: Planning a Successful Social Media Strategy." The moderator is Pauline Ores.
• The third session is entitled, "Online Communities: A Bonanza of Content for Searchers and Search Engines."
• The fourth session is entitled, "Online Communities: Blogging for Business." One of the speakers is Jennifer Evans Laycock.

That's right. They walk among us!

And it's hard to tell when you're talking with a search engine marketing expert and when you're talking with a social marketing expert. It's sort of like Americans and Canadians or people from the East Coast and people from the Left Coast. If it wasn't for a few trick phrases, you'd never be able to tell them apart.

So, to help you navigate this socially awkward situation, here's an SEM guide to Facebook, and YouTube, and Twitter. Oh, my!

Block: A Facebook term that means to prevent someone from searching for and viewing your profile. This is not to be confused with a "text block," a term that SEMs might use describe various elements that are considered parts of normal text.

Block: A YouTube term that means certain content which violates YouTube's Content ID usage policy will not be allowed on its network. This is not to be confused with the phrase "around the block a few times," which might mean an SEM remembers the "Florida" update of November 2003.

Block: A Twitter term that means discovering new people on your Twitter Block by navigating through this animated three dimensional visualization of who follows whom. This is not to be confused with the expression "chip off the old block," which might mean a young SEM submits to DMOZ just like his old man did.

Hmmm. We may need to call for backup.

Okay, I didn't want to do this, but I'll use YouTube to illustrate the difference between a search engine marketing expert and a social marketing expert.

In the example below, a Canadian interviews an American. Can you figure out which one is a search engine marketing expert and which one is a social marketing expert?

Small Business Viral Marketing Tips, SES San Jose 2008

Here's another example. An East Coast guru interviews a Left Coast guru. Can you tell which one is a social marketing expert and which one is search engine marketing expert?

John Battelle on Google Universal Search at SES NY 2008

If you still can't tell the difference between a search engine marketing expert and a social marketing expert, then we may need to "Test Your Awareness." This is something that I learned about at SES London last month. Watch the video below and count the number of passes the team in white makes.

Test Your Awareness: Do The Test

Now, did you see the moonwalking bear?

That's what I'm talking about. If you are focused on search engine marketing you may not see social marketing -- until someone calls your attention to it.

Okay, that's as much help as I can give you. At Search Engine Strategies New York, you may need to develop your own techniques for sorting this out. But whatever you do, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 20, 2009, 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mobile Internet News & Info Grows 107%, Mobile Social Grows 427% in 1 year

comScore has released quite the interesting data on the growing trend of mobile internet usage. It seems daily usage among unique users has grown over 100% from January of 2008 to January of 2009.

But get this - that's just the number for accessing news and information. It doesn't even include social networking. With mobile Facebook and Twitter apps, it's no surprise that the growth rate in that space is monumental:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 19, 2009, 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Adds YouTube Feature to Gmail Labs

When you get a link to a YouTube video to your Gmail account, wouldn't it be nice to view the video right then and there without opening a new tab or window? You're not the only one who thinks so. A new Gmail Labs feature enables just that.

Turn on the new feature by clicking on "Settings" in the top right corner of your Gmail page. Then look for "Labs." Previews for Picasa, Flickr and Yelp have been added as well.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 19, 2009, 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google AdWords Unveils New Templates for Coupon Display Ads

Google AdWords has released new templates that allow you to create coupons for display advertising. The ads can then run on the Google Content Network. Here's an example:

The new templates can be accessed via the Display Ad Builder in your AdWords account.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 19, 2009, 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In Search Race, Ballmer Seeks More Eyeballs

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer just can't get away from questions about going after Yahoo - again. Just over a year after the software giant made a public - and unsolicited - bid for the Sunnyvale search engine, the playing field has changed. The economy went to the pooper and Yahoo!'s stock followed suit. Then there's a brand spankin' new CEO in former Autodesk Chairman Carol Bartz.

Ever since Ballmer declared that Microsoft is moving on last July, he's never wavered from that stance. Instead, he's been scooping up Yahoo! employees and bringing them into his house.

So when Ballmer recently said that any deal with Yahoo! would be a grab for eyeballs, not technology - I tend to believe him. After all, he's got a bunch of Yahoo! talent now. They have the tech know-how. What else would he really need Yahoo! for?

Of course, that won't stop the questions from being asked and the whispers from being uttered. Will Microsoft and Yahoo! strike a deal? Only time will tell, but the nature of a new deal almost certainly has changed.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 19, 2009, 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Launches Two New TV Ads Reporting Features

Google has released two television advertising reporting features. They are:

Google Analytics enhancements - Now, you can track TV ads by the hour and see how many viewed the ad as well as what percentage of the initial audience was retained throughout the entire ad.

Audience Data Reporting - Google is adding interests (i.e. photography) and household properties (i.e. marital status, presence of children). Previously, they were just reporting Viewers Per Viewing Household within a chosen age and gender. This video explains more:

What do you think of these updates? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 19, 2009, 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Search for SEM conference and find SES New York 2009

When I conducted a search yesterday on Google for "SEM conference", the top sponsored listing was for Search Engine Strategies New York. However, the top organic listing was for the Society for Experimental Mechanics.

Andrew Goodman at SES London 2009.jpg Welcome to the real world. The organic search engine results don't always reflect the way we'd define a three-letter acronym (TLA).

And that's why the SES New York 2009 agenda overview features a ton of conference sessions and training workshops devoted to search engine marketing (SEM) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Sometimes, PPC ads are the only way you can get found for a TLA.

If you are wrestling with similar, real-world challenges, then you have two options. First, you can read Andrew Goodman's book, Winning Results with Google Adwords. (The photo on the left is Andrew signing his book at SES London 2009.) Second, you can get over to the Hilton New York next week and register for what should be the leading SEM conference by anyone's definition. (Of course, you can do both.)

If you select the first option, here are the sessions and workshops that you should attend:

Monday, March 23

8:00am-12:00pm -- Making Pay Per Click Pay - Best Practices in Pay Per Click Advertising

1:00pm-5:00pm -- Landing Page Testing Crash Course

Tuesday, March 24

10:30am-11:30am -- First Timer's Guide to SES and SEM

11:45am-12:45pm -- Introduction to Search Engine Marketing

1:45pm-2:45pm -- Pay Per Conversation

3:00pm-4:00pm -- Publishers & Agencies: New Business Models for Changing Times

4:30pm-5:30pm -- The Dozen Most Common Search Marketing Mistakes That CMOs Make

6:15pm -- SEMPO Networking Event

Wednesday, March 25

9:00am-10:15am -- Search Advertising 101

10:45am-12:00pm -- Google Workshop: Preview the new AdWords interface

1:00pm-2:00pm -- The State of Search - A Maturing Marketplace or Poised for More Growth?

2:15pm-3:30pm -- Slash Your Search Budget: What Are Your Alternatives?

4:00pm-5:15pm -- Wpromote Workshop: 8 Things You Aren't Doing That Will Boost Your SEM Results

Thursday, March 26

9:00am-10:00am -- Morning Keynote by John Gerzema, Author of The Brand Bubble

10:30am-11:45am -- Advanced Keyword Research

12:45pm-2:00pm -- Advanced Paid Search Techniques

2:15pm-3:30pm -- Ads in a Quality Score World

3:45pm-5:00pm -- Don't Be Afraid of the Dark: Black Hat PPC Tactics

Of course, search engine marketing means more than just pay-per-click advertising, even if it commands the lion's share of most SEM budgets. And SEM needs to be integrated into the rest of a company's marketing mix. Last month, I interviewed Bill Hunt, the CEO of Global Strategies Inc. and Director of Global Search Strategy at Neo@Ogilvy, about this topic at SES London 2009. Listen to his insights below.

Bill Hunt, Global Strategies Int., on collaborative marketing at SES London 2009

Bill is just one of the many SEM experts who will be speaking at the SEM conference that our industry calls SES New York. How do I know that he's also a top thought leader on Search Engine Marketing? Bill is the co-author of the best selling book "Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Traffic to Your Companies Web Site" from IBM Press. And Bill, you magnificent SEM, I read your book!

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 19, 2009, 7:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Travel Search Site Travelocity Launches Toolbar

As we all know, the economy has been volatile, which usually bodes not-so-well for industries that are on the indulgent side. But Travelocity is aiming to keep vacations on the minds of consumers by releasing a toolbar.

It may seem like bad timing, but with a constant presence of travel deals and sales, it could end up being a good strategy.

Plus, Travelocity is hitting all the online hot spots in attempt to promote the new toolbar. Facebook, Twitter, their blog, search ads and display ads will all be part of the campaign.

The toolbar was built on Conduit. Last year, Travelocity launched an iPhone app, which enables mobile travel search on the go.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 18, 2009, 8:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dennis Woodside Tapped to Replace Tim Armstrong at Google

Dennis Woodside has been tapped to replace Tim Armstrong at Google. Woodside was formerly Google's VP of U.K., Benelux, and Ireland. Armstrong was Sr. VP and based in New York.

Last week, AOL announced that Armstrong had been selected as their new CEO. Armstrong will take over for Randy Falco. AOL is owned by parent company Time Warner.

It's no secret that AOL needs new direction. The company spent last year of attempting to strike some kind of merger or acquisition with Microsoft and/or Yahoo!

Time Warner also decided to split AOL into two: one part media and one part internet access. Their original internet access business has been flailing lately due to the popularity of cable and DSL subscriptions.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 18, 2009, 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

adCenter Releases New Conversion Tracking Options

Microsoft's adCenter has released new converstion tracking options. They are, according to the adCenter blog:

Count One Conversion Per Click: adCenter will only count the first conversion to occur after the click. Any subsequent conversions will not be counted unless they originate from a new click.
Count One Conversion Per Unique URL: Under this mode, your site will "tell" us when a new conversion event has taken place. This allows you to synchronize adCenter's conversion counts very closely to your own system. To take advantage of this method, you will need to be able to update your site to generate a unique transaction code to represent the conversion. This is a more complicated option for some advertisers, but it can deliver better results.
Count All: Some advertisers want all of the events to be reported, and they already have sites that are designed to eliminate repeat-visit problems. This option ensures that all conversion events are reported.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 18, 2009, 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Report: SMBs Expected to Spend More Online

Local advertising spending by small-to-medium U.S. businesses will grow by almost 34 percent from 2008 to 2013, and nearly 70 percent of their interactive ad budgets will go toward paid search and video, according to a new report from Borrell Associates, "Main Street Goes Interactive."

The report says there will be a nearly 275 percent increase in SMB spending on streaming audio and video, almost 140 percent increase on e-mail and direct ad formats, nearly 35 percent increase in paid search spending, and an 8 percent increase in standard display ads, reports ClickZ News.

Some SMBs, particularly real estate firms and computer-service stores, are spending between 30 percent and 45 percent of their advertising budgets on Web advertising, according to Borrell Associates CEO Gordon Borrell. However, the typical SMB is spending only about 11 percent. "Still, this 11 percent was just 4 percent a few years ago, so they're adjusting the dials," Borrell told ClickZ.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on March 18, 2009, 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

@guykawasaki & Lucille Ball: Personal Channels & Social Media Success

My wife is a prolific generator of content. She takes, on average, 200 photos per day, writes a public blog, and sends detailed, engaging emails about our travels to her personal email list.

Recently she told me she'd like to make a little money selling her photographs. I asked her what was standing in her way. She said, "I've been trying to figure out what my niche should be." My response: "You ARE the niche."

Meaning that she is a dependable source of high-quality content in a variety of media through a variety of communication channels. Her friends and readers trust her to select/create/synthesize content that, to them, due to their shared interest, is consistently useful and enjoyable. How did she earn their trust? By maintaining a steady, dependable flow of such content, year after year.

Shortly after this exchange, walking along a NYC street, I saw a vendor selling photographs. Included were shots of cultural icons: Elvis, John Lennon, Lucille Ball.

Which set me thinking: how does one attain iconic status?

In the case of Lucille Ball, she was certainly a comedic genius - but she would probably be one of the first to admit her iconic status depended mainly on her persistent hard work, channeling content from great writers. Fans tuned into her show and filled theaters for her movies because of the fact that such channeling had made her a trusted, dependable source of comedic content.

Guy Kawasaki has achieved similar status in a smaller circle. While I don't expect to see his photo sold from a table in Times Square, he's become an icon in what used to be called "high tech" circles. He's done that by serving as a dependable channel for high-quality information that's the cream of a crop of some pretty poorly-written junk. He calls his most recent communications medium, Twitter (@guykawasaki), his "full-time job."

What's he's saying is that Twitter helps him solidify his reputation as a dependable source - a trusted editor - via small, 140-character chunks of text, many times per day. 24/7. His reputation is the driver of his sources of compensation - the sales of his excellent books, ad revenue from his "virtual newsstand" Alltop, and fees for his speaking engagements like his keynote at SES New York next week.

I have a similar attitude: my main job is to serve as a channel for the best, most credible information about online advertising in general, and PPC advertising (e.g. Google AdWords) in particular. I spend a big chunk of every day reading articles and press releases, and "re-tweeting" links to the best ones on Twitter (@szetela).

At the end of every day, all of the links I've published via twitter are collected by a software "bot" and re-published in a single blog post. That way my readers can follow individual Tweets or click through the links in the blog post.

Geekier people like my friend, Social Media Marketing expert Marty Weintraub, refer to such practices with Web 4.0 terms like "personal distribution networks using human feeds." I call it common-sense relationship-building whose practice and value has been around as long as Man.

Want to win at the social media game and become an icon within your sphere? Think of yourself as the proprietor of a personal channel. It's your job to keep current on news, developments and resources within your field of expertise -- or even just your field of view. Your value to your "followers" is the fact that you can be depended upon to separate the wheat from the chaff -- and pass on to them only the best content.

Posted by David Szetela on March 18, 2009, 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

SES New York is SEO Conference for Search Engine Optimizers

For the past few days, I've outlined the sessions at Search Engine Strategies New York that should appeal to newbies and veterans next week. But at its core, the event remains the premier SEO conference that was launched a decade ago. And there will be plenty of content at SES New York 2009 for budding search engine optimization specialists and experienced SEO consultants to see and hear.

Mike Grehan at SES London 2009.jpg Here are some samples of the sessions and workshops that should appear to search engine optimizers:

Monday, March 23

8:00am-12:00pm -- How to Create a Successful In-House SEO Program

1:00pm-5:00pm -- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop

Tuesday, March 24

10:30am-11:30am -- SEO: Where to Next

11:45am-12:45pm -- Key Points in Launching a Global Website

1:45pm-2:45pm -- Beyond Googling: Where Will Your Customers Be Searching in Five Years?

3:00pm-4:00pm -- Universal and Blended Search: An Update

4:30pm-5:30pm -- Video Search Engine Optimization: 2009 and Beyond

Wednesday, March 25

9:00am-10:15am -- Discover the Power of Linking: Link Building Basics

10:45am-12:00pm -- Keywords & Content: Search Marketing Foundations

1:00pm-2:00pm -- The State of Search - A Maturing Marketplace or Poised for More Growth?

2:15pm-3:30pm -- Turning Simple Change into Big Profit

4:00pm-5:15pm -- Google Workshop: Maximizing Your Website's ROI

Thursday, March 26

10:30am-11:45am -- SEO Through Blogs & Feeds

12:45pm-2:00pm -- SEO Tools of the Trade: What's in YOUR Toolbox?

2:15pm-3:30pm -- Google Website Optimizer: Radically Improve your Conversion Rate!

3:45pm-5:00pm -- The Importance of Usability and Accessibility in Search

Friday, March 27

8:30am-5:30pm -- SEO Training Course in partnership withBruce Clay.

To figure out which conference package is right for you, click on the rates and registration details.

Or, if you want a sample of the things you will learn from the experts at SES New York 2009, check out my interview with Rand Fishkin, the CEO of SEOMoz, below. I interviewed Rand about the future of SEO at SES London 2009 last month.

Rand Fishkin, SEOMoz, on the future of SEO in 2009

Get it? Got it? Good.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 18, 2009, 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

AOL Completes Platform-A Transformation from DoubleClick to ADTECH

AOL has announced the completion of transitioning from providing offerings via DoubleClick to providing full service offerings via ADTECH. AOL acquired ADTECH in 2007. DoubleClick was acquired by Google last year, after the European Union approved the merger. Google owns a 5% stake in AOL and Google Sr. VP Tim Armstrong was recently tapped to be AOL's CEO. Platform-A reaches 91% of the U.S. internet audience.

"The ad serving switch from DoubleClick to ADTECH is a major milestone for Platform-A and our advertising partners. Acquiring ADTECH was a smart, strategic move that saves the company millions of dollars each year and allows us to more effectively serve display, video, and mobile campaigns across the MediaGlow properties and our third-party networks," said Greg Coleman, President of Platform-A. "In January, Platform-A reached more than 174 million unique visitors*, and now that we've switched our ad serving to ADTECH, we're in a stronger position to help advertisers reach those consumers more efficiently and build brands that perform online."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 17, 2009, 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next Version of Google Chrome Released Into Beta

Google's browser, Chrome, was released as a beta last year. Then, in December, it was released out of beta. Now, the next version has been released into beta. Confused?

If you're using Chrome, only upgrade to the next beta if you're willing to test out the new features. They may not work perfectly yet.

The new beta includes:

Speed improvement
Additional Browsing Tools
Basic Form Auto-Fill
Full Page Zoom
Support for Autoscroll
A New Way to Drag Tabs into Side-by-Side View

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 17, 2009, 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Friend Connect Launches API

Google Friend Connect, the tool that allows web developers to add social networking to any site, has launched an API. Here's what site owners and developers can expect:

Site owners - Integrate Friend Connect more deeply into your site. JavaScript APIs allow you to integrate a social community directly within the markup of your page, and our REST APIs allow you integrate existing login systems and your existing data with new social data and activities. These are your visitors and this is your site, so you should be able to add social features the way you want.
Plugin developers - Make plugins to integrate with popular content management systems, bulletin boards, or any open framework. To get you started, we have created open source plugin samples for WordPress, Drupal, and phpBB.
Gadget developers - Make OpenSocial applications with greater control over how data flows across servers with signed requests. Use server-side authentication mechanisms so that a site with Friend Connect can act as an OpenSocial container.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 17, 2009, 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Adds Partners and Ads to Hosted News

Google has made a couple of announcements regarding Hosted News. First up, 8 news agencies have been added as Hosted News partners. All of the agencies belong to the European Press Agency. The agreement will allow the agencies to distribute newswire content on Google News.

Seconly, ads will now appear next to Hosted News stories. The ads will appear below the main text of the articles. You'll need to click on a single story page in order to see these particular ads. Last month, ads were added to Google News results.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 17, 2009, 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe Launches SEO Technology Center for Flash

In the not-so-distant past, sites built using Adobe's Flash technology were invisible to search engines. Both search engines and SEOs have continued to work on ways to make those pages show up better in search results. Last summer, Adobe lent a hand, by providing its Flash technology to Google and Yahoo to help them figure out how to better index sites and pages created with Flash.

This week, Adobe went a step further, launching a new SEO Technology Center for Flash to help developers and other content creators build Flash applications in more search-friendly ways. The site, part of the Adobe Developer Connection, explains current SEO challenges and provides practical steps, examples, and best practices to overcome them.

Although the search engines are currently working on improving their indexing of Flash content, Adobe advises that at this point, it's still best to offer them an HTML representation of the content. They explain that this could be done via hidden DIV tags, which they admit is considered to be hidden text by some, and may get you banned by Google if you're not showing the same content there as you are in the Flash file. They suggest using the NOSCRIPT tag, since Flash files are called via JavaScript, and the search engines don't use JavaScript in their crawlers.

Adobe advises setting up separate HTML pages for each important topic area of your site, and deep-linking to the proper area of the SWF file from each of those pages. That's a best practice for non-Flash SEO as well, since a page that focuses more on a given topic is likely to rank better for keywords around that topic, while a page with six or seven topics is not likely to rank well for any of them.

There's lots more great content on the new SEO Technology Center for Flash, so if you've got a site that uses Flash, or are considering building one, you should definitely take the time to read as much as you can about it before moving forward.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on March 17, 2009, 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Yahoo Adds Targeting to Search and Content Ads

Yahoo has added some new features to its Sponsored Search and Content Match ads, including demographic targeting, ZIP-level geotargeting, and dayparting/ad scheduling.

As Carrie Hill wrote in her Small Business Marketing column today, demographic targeting is already available from Google and Microsoft, but it is a welcome addition to Yahoo's search ad platform and content network. Audiences can be targeted by age and gender, with a separate bid set for those desired groups.

Dayparting allows advertisers to schedule ads to appear by time of day or day of week. ZIP code-level geotargeting, which has been in beta since October, allows advertisers to select a ZIP code to target, or use Yahoo's dynamic mapping feature to select individual ZIP codes and ZIP codes surrounding them.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on March 17, 2009, 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

YouTube Dominates Online Video Market on Both Sides of Pond

Two weeks ago, I reported that YouTube had surpassed 100 million U.S. viewers for the first time. According to comScore Video Metrix, 100.9 million viewers watched 6.3 billion videos on YouTube.com in January 2009 -- an average of 62.6 videos per viewer.

Today, comScore reported that 23.5 million U.K. viewers watched over 2 billion videos on YouTube.com in January 2009 -- an average of 86 videos per viewer. And 1.1 million U.K. mobile phone subscribers visited YouTube.com that month.

During SES London 2009 last month, I interviewed Li Evans of Key Relevance about new wave in video.

Li talked about how putting your brand out via YouTube is becoming a new marketing channel for companies. She said that if you are a company looking to get your videos out for branding and marketing purposes, you have to make sure everything is congruent across all marketing channels, including avatars, banners, or overlays on the videos. Li recommended some additional tips and strategies for companies looking to create brand effectively through video. Check out the video interview below.

Liana Evans, KeyRelevance, on video branding strategy at SES London

Li and I will both be speaking next week at the "Video Search Engine Optimization: 2009 and Beyond" session at SES New York 2009. Jeff Ferguson, a member of the SES Advisory Board and the Director of Online Marketing for Napster will be moderating the panel, which also includes Gregory Markel, the Founder and President of Infuse Creative, Henry Hall, the Senior Product Manager of Microsoft Live Search, and Matthew Liu, the Product Manager of YouTube Sponsored Videos.

This session will look at how video search engine optimization (VSEO) has become the most important new use of search engine optimization today. Although, YouTube isn't a video search engine; it doesn't crawl videos on your website. It describes itself as "the world's most popular online video community." I'd describe it as a video sharing site.

But whatever you call it, YouTube dominates the online video market on both sides of the pond.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 17, 2009, 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

SES New York Veterans Don't Need No Schedule Optimization

With Search Engine Strategies getting underway next week, veterans of SES New York don't need no stinking schedule optimization services -- even if I do offer them for free. A quick look at the conference agenda will reassure them that there is enough content to make a return trip worthwhile.

Fionn Downhill at SES New York.jpg Actually, alumni of previous events may scan the schedule for more than a few minutes looking for market trends and business opportunities hidden in plain sight among the 65 conference sessions, six search engine marketing training workshops, six express site clinics, two keynotes, one Orion Panel, a one-day SEO training course, and a one-day web analytics training course.

I know, because that's what I do. And I've been attending Search Engine Strategies New York each and every year since 2004. Over the years, I've seen the changes in the search engine industry reflected in the new content added to the agenda each year.

Looking over the SES New York Agenda Overview for March 23-27, 2009, here are the significant developments that I seen hidden in plain sight:

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

9:00-10:00 am -- Twitter As A Tool For Social Media
Twitter was barely mentioned at last year's conference, and now it's featured in a keynote.

10:30-11:30 am -- SEO: Where to Next?
Certain industry pundits have been heard to say that SEO is dead, but I'd say it's alive, well and kicking.

11:45am-12:45 pm -- Thinking Outside Your Website: Branding Without Borders
With the popularity of sites like YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook, brands increasingly need to engage with their customers outside their website.

1:45-2:45 pm -- Budget Migration: Going Digital Without Impacting Your Brand
Companies have started moving significant resources away from TV, radio and print and into search, social, display and email.

3:00-4:00 pm -- Publishers & Agencies: New Business Models for Changing Times
Okay, so I'm moderating this panel. But it still looks very interesting.

4:30-5:30 pm -- Video Search Engine Optimization: 2009 and Beyond
And, yes, I'm speaking at this session. But according to comScore, YouTube surpassed 100 Million U.S. viewers in January 2009.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

9:00-10:15 am -- Small Voices, Big Impact: Social Media for the Little Guy
Amber Naslund, the Director of Community of Radian6. Damn, now the rest of the search engine industry will learn about this complete monitoring and analysis solution for PR professionals.

10:45 am-12:00 pm -- Google Workshop: Preview the new AdWords interface
All session attendees will receive priority access to the new interface, so be sure to bring your AdWords Customer ID.

1:00-2:00 pm -- The State of Search - A Maturing Marketplace or Poised for More Growth?
I don't know about you, but I want to take a hard look at the current value proposition of search and what the future holds for the North American search marketplace.

2:15-3:30 pm -- Facebook Workshop: Harnessing the Social Graph
Are you wondering how to effectively advertise on Facebook? I am.

4:00-5:15 pm -- Political Search: Preparing for Search in 2010
Okay, so I'm a political junkie. But so are lots of other YouTubers.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

9:00-10:00 am -- The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It
Yes, pinch yourself, an ad agency exec is talking about brand strategies at Search Engine Strategies.

10:30-11:45 am -- An Update on Social Media Optimization
Are Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft Tagspace, Wikipedia and new sites allowing content to be shared through "tagging" a great way to tap into links and search-driven traffic? Inquiring minds want to know.

12:45-2:00 pm -- News Search SEO
Yes, yes, this panel has been around since 2004. But I'm presenting a brand new case study (about building over 700 inlinks in just 7 weeks) and the other panelists are presenting new content as well. So, don't let the title fool you.

2:15-3:30 pm -- Google Website Optimizer: Radically Improve your Conversion Rate!
Now you know why certain industry pundits have been heard to say that SEO is dead. Google Website Optimizer killed it.

3:45-5:00 pm -- Don't Be Afraid of the Dark: Black Hat PPC Tactics
I know about Black Hat SEO tactics, but there's also Black Hat PPC! Who knew?

In addition to all this new content, SES New York 2009 will also feature a number of special events where SES veterans can network with approximately 5,000 other attendees. And on Monday, March 23, there's the IM Charity Party at SES NY from 8:00 p.m. to midnight. And on Tuesday, March 24, there's the SEMPO Event at 6:15 p.m.

If you want a flavor of what "networking" looks like, check out the highlights from Search Engine Strategies New York 2008. Based on this YouTube video, it appears that dancing and yodeling. (Hey, I couldn't make this stuff up.) See for yourself.

Search Engine Strategies New York 2008

Tomorrow, we'll look at the sessions for search engine optimizers. Stay tuned.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 17, 2009, 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Utah Search Bill Pulled from Senate Vote, Postponed Until 2010

The Senate sponsor of the latest Utah search bill, Curtis Bramble, pulled the it from being voted on by last Thursday's deadline, according to Clickz. After passing the House by a slim margin, the bill had to be voted on by last Thursday, which was the last day of the Utah legislature's 45 day general session this year.

Senator Bramble says the bill needs more debate and consideration. The next chance the bill will have is in 2010, when the legislature convenes again.

If passed, the law would prohibit advertisers from bidding on trademarked terms when targeting Utah consumers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 16, 2009, 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Truth About SEO: Great Book By Rebecca Lieb

Former Editor-in-Chief of ClickZ Rebecca Lieb has published a book "The Truth About Search Engine Optimization" which I highly recommend for novice and intermediate search marketers.

In 51 short chapters of a few pages each she covers the basics and some more advanced information written in an easy to read format. It is now one of my recommended books.

Some of her insights we all should keep in mind:

"Searchers either find you, or they find your competitors."

"Search results are not something you can control. But if you are smart and you know what you are doing, you can wield plenty of influence over what shows up in them."

"Blogs are literally built to attract search engine spiders and crawlers."

"Don't live and die by Page Rank."

Can grab a copy over at Amazon.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 16, 2009, 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Come To IM Charity Party During SES NY

There will be a great charity event on Monday night March 23rd during SES NY. All money goes to charity and there is an open bar for 4 hours at the Heartland Brewery in Union Square. All are welcome.

Here is a creative video Greg Niland of GoodRoi did - he gives me too much credit since he really is the one that does all the work for this.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 16, 2009, 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook Connect Now Available for iPhone

Facebook Connect is a web development tool that helps sites add social networking (similar to Google Friend Connect). Now, Facebook developers have released a version of Connect for iPhone app developers.

This, of course, enables developers to add social networking to their apps. It includes:

Making API calls so your app can access users' profiles and share information on Facebook.
Publishing to Facebook via Feed forms.
Asking users for extended permissions, like offline access, so you can still interact with their data when they're offline.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 16, 2009, 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bebo Expands to Five More European Countries

Social network Bebo, which was acquired by AOL last year, has expanded to five additional European countries. The countries are: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

Bebo is already available in the UK and Ireland.

"The proven success of our platform in the UK and Ireland positions us well to expand into these dynamic continental European markets. The social networking audience is growing rapidly and our new sites will allow local users to connect with other users, entertainment and brands, both globally and locally. The richness of our experience lies in the user's ability to express him or herself - as evidenced in our new Lifestory feature - and in the ability to connect to people, media and brands through the Lifestream and our Open Media Platform," said Nicole Vanderbilt, VP International, Bebo."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 16, 2009, 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 2009 Sees Increase in Search Queries

comScore has released search rankings for February 2009. When they release rankings, they compare them to the month before. Of course, that's a bit of funky methodology since the two months will inevitably have a different amount of days (with the exception of a July/August comparison).

In this case, February needs even more careful inspection. Yours truly has taken a look at the numbers from last February, a leap year, and compared them to this February.

The following numbers are by the million. For example, the total number of searches for February 2009 was 13.1 billion, but below, it's represented as 13,104:

(Click on the image to view larger graphic)

Here's the data comparing to January 2009:

Here's a comparison of the search market share. As you can see, Google continues its dominance:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 16, 2009, 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Schedule Optimization for Newbies at SES New York 2009

Search Engine Strategies gets underway next week. If you've never been to SES New York before, then navigating the conference agenda can seem almost as complex as planning your search engine marketing strategy for 2009.

SES New York 2008 crowd.jpg Actually, that's what the Search Engine Strategies conference is supposed to help you do.

But, first time attendees often try to learn everything they need to know about SEM in just three days. If search engine optimization were just a handful of tricks and pay-per-click advertising consisted of only a couple of short-cuts, then there wouldn't be 65 conference sessions, six search engine marketing training workshops, six express site clinics, two keynotes, one Orion Panel, a one-day SEO training course, and a one-day web analytics training course.

Yes, there is that much to learn.

And you can't learn everything -- because there are five concurrent conference sessions and you can only attend one of them in each time slot. If you bring a team of five to SES New York 2009, then you can get together afterwards and compare notes. But if you are coming on your own, then you need to figure out which sessions will help you the most.

Now, I've attended Search Engine Strategies each and every year since the spring of 2002. And last year, I started providing a free service to Search Engine Watch readers: Schedule optimization for SES New York.

So, if this is your first Search Engine Strategies, then here are the conference sessions that I'd recommend you attend:

Tuesday, March 24, 2009:

9:00-10:00 am -- Twitter As A Tool For Social Media

10:30-11:30 am -- First Timer's Guide to SES and SEM

11:45 am-12:45 pm -- Introduction to Search Engine Marketing

1:00-2:00 pm -- Express Search Usability Clinic

2:00-3:00 pm -- Power PPC Advertising Clinic

3:00-4:00 pm -- The Imperative: Successful Site Architecture

4:30-5:30 pm -- The Dozen Most Common Search Marketing Mistakes That CMOs Make

Wednesday, March 25, 2009:

9:00-10:15 am -- Discover the Power of Linking: Link Building Basics

10:45 am-12:00 pm -- Keywords & Content: Search Marketing Foundations

1:00-2:00 pm -- The State of Search - A Maturing Marketplace or Poised for More Growth?

2:15-3:30 pm -- Facebook Workshop: Harnessing the Social Graph

4:00-5:15 pm -- Google Workshop: Maximizing Your Website's ROI

Thursday, March 26, 2009:

9:00-10:00 am -- The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It

10:30-11:45 am -- Extreme Makeover: Live Ad Copy & Continuity Clinic!

12:45-2:00pm -- SEO Tools of the Trade: What's in YOUR toolbox?

2:15-3:30 pm -- Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic!

3:45-5:00 pm -- Extreme Makeover: Live Search Advertising Clinic!

Feel free to make your own selections. These are just suggestions to help you navigate your first SES New York. After you've attended this event for a couple of years, you'll see that the agenda is constantly changing to keep up with the latest developments in the search engine industry.

That's right. This is an example of lifelong learning. To get a sense of what you'll learn, check out the 5-minute video below. It is one of 238 videos posted on SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube.

Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo

Of course, if you don't want to be found when 13.1 billion core searches -- or 19.2 expanded searches -- are conducted each month in the U.S., then you can afford to skip a Search Engine Strategies conference now and then.

What's the difference between a core search and an expanded search? That's what you're going to SES New York 2009 to discover. Hint: According to comScore, the 2.7 billion search queries conducted at YouTube each month are considered "expanded searches."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 16, 2009, 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Enter Today To Win an Extreme Makeover at SES New York 2009

I'll take a closer look at the SES New York conference agenda next week, but there is one deadline that you don't want to miss. You need to enter today to win an Extreme Makeover.

So, sign up for a chance to have your site receive an extreme makeover in real time during SES New York. Conversion experts Bryan Eisenberg, Tim Ash and Ethan Giffin will perform 3 makeovers during their Extreme Makeover: Conversion Edition presentation on Tuesday, March 24, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. The winners of the drawing will be notified prior to the event. But entries must be received by Friday, March 13.

That's today!

Only paid conference attendees are eligible for this drawing. Winners must have a valid conference pass on the day of the session.

If you haven't met Eisenberg, Ash or Giffin, let me introduce you. Eisenberg of Future Now interviewed Ash of SiteTuners at SES San Jose 2008. The two AB testing gurus talked about landing page testing shop on the conference floor. They discussed the crucial nature of testing for the bottom line with the triple threat of increased online competition, rising PPC costs, and a recession economy.

Check out the video below.

AB Test Experts Tim Ash and Bryan Eisenberg

There is much, much more going on at SES New York 2009. I'll optimize the schedule next week. But I didn't want anyone to miss out of the chance to win an Extreme Makeover.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 13, 2009, 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Girl Scouts Nix Internet Advertising, Fear Predators Will Order In

The Girl Scouts have ordered a North Carolina girl's plans to sell cookies online, fearing safety issues, the Associated Press reported.

The Ashville Scout member wanted to use YouTube to help sell cookies for her troop and raise enough money for them to go to summer camp, but the organization ordered the ad to be removed. Issues of fairness and safety were given for the decision.

It is understandable the Scouts did not want any chance of anything happening to the girls. Online predators are a major problem and this could have created problems for the organization throughout the country if others copied the idea.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 13, 2009, 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Waggener Edstrom Releases Twitter Monitoring Tool: Twendz

Earlier this week, Waggener Edstrom released a beta version of a conversation-monitoring device specialized for Twitter, called "Twendz."

According to a story in PR Week, "Twendz" evaluates up to 70 Twitter microblog posts, or Tweets, at once, and compares them to a database of words associated with positive or negative sentiments. The tool then rates the overall tone of messages as they apply to companies, individuals, or products, according to a company statement.

There is no release date set for a final version.

Appropriately, Waggener Edstrom unveiled the product on its Twitter account. Although there are a number of third-party Twitter management systems such as Tweetdeck, it appears that this tool offers analysis of conversations as well as the ability to manage Twitter feeds in easy-to-read formats.

Check it out.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 13, 2009, 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hulu Adds Social Networking, Celebrates First Year

Online video site Hulu is celebrating its first birthday by adding social networking to the site. Dubbed "Hulu Friends," users can do the usual: share videos, comment on shows and content, and view rankings. Hulu integrates with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Facebook, and Myspace to help users find their friends and/or invite them to Hulu.

Hulu is experiencing 24 million visitors a month. It has risen quickly in its niche and trails only YouTube in the online video space. They began with 50 content partners and now boast over 130. They've grown from 30 advertisers to 175+.

Over 3.9 million Hulu players have been embedded on more than 100,000 sites. Congrats on all the success, Hulu!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 13, 2009, 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hitwise Report Details Downstream Visits from Twitter

After people are on Twitter.com, where do they browse? Hitwise has released a report with data that answers that question and more.

Interestingly enough, people go to Google and Facebook from Twitter. Here's the data from February 2009:

Here's a look at the categories of post-Twitter visits:

And here's how Twitter compares to other categories and their downstreams:

What this data doesn't show are clicks from Twitter desktop and mobile clients. As a result, this is only a snapshot of the Twitter downstream.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 13, 2009, 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

SearchMonkey Now Allows Embedded Rich Media in Yahoo! Results

If you want to have a flash video, game or document appear in Yahoo! results, a new SearchMonkey feature will allow you to do that. All you have to do is add a couple lines of code and the next time Yahoo! crawls that page, the embedded rich media will appear in the results.

Here's an example of a Hulu result with an embedded video next to it:

Here's the code - the first two lines are what create the embed in the Yahoo! results:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 13, 2009, 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google's Tim Armstrong Named Chairman and CEO of AOL

Google Senior Vice President Tim Armstrong has been tapped to replace Randy Falco as Chairman and CEO of AOL.

"Tim is the right executive to move AOL into the next phase of its evolution. At Google, Armstrong helped build one of the most successful media teams in the history of the Internet -- helping to make Google the most popular online search advertising platform in the world for direct and brand marketers," said Jeff Bewkes, Chairman and CEO of Time Warner, parent company of AOL. "He's an advertising pioneer with a stellar reputation and proven track record. We are privileged to have him preside over AOL as its audience and programming businesses continue to grow and its advertising platform expands globally. He'll also be helpful in helping Time Warner determine the optimal structure for AOL."

Armstrong has been with Google since 2000. He led sales efforts in the U.S. and Latin America. Google owns a 5% stake in AOL.

"I'm very excited about the opportunities presented in leading AOL. AOL has a wide-ranging set of assets and audience," said Armstrong. "The company is well positioned to enhance those assets into a larger share of the Internet audience and advertiser communities. AOL and Google have been partners for years and I look forward to collaborating with Jeff Bewkes and his team as we explore the right structure and future for AOL."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 13, 2009, 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft Closes adCenter Analytics

Microsoft announced it has closed its analytics program - adCenter Analytics beta - and at the end of the year all current users will no longer have access to the program.

Microsoft is recommending that all current users download all their information prior to the December 31 closing. The adCenter Analytics blog stated this program was a success and gave them insight into the analytics process.

"It enabled us to confidently determine that we can be of most value to advertisers and publishers by offering a tailored solution that meets more specialized needs."

Guess they plan on offering an alternative some time in the future.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 12, 2009, 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Is Google Big Brother? 25 Surprising Things Google Knows About You

The e-Justice blog gives a detailed list of how Google collects information about its users. Some of the items on the list only apply to advanced users of Google products but laid out like they are it makes for an intimidating read.

The first three most are conscious of our searches, the web pages you visit and the blogs you read, others like financial information and what's on your PC may surprise people.

It is worth having a look over.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 12, 2009, 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Court Denies Yahoo Request To Move Trademark Case

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected Yahoo's bid to move the trademark suit brought by American Airlines in a Texas court.

One has to wonder how long it will be before Yahoo settles with American Airlines, like Google did last year. If the case goes to court and Yahoo loses could it create a change in all paid search?

Google no longer runs ads for any of American Airlines' trademarks - though they do carry ads for companies advertising on other airlines' names. But Google settled and no precedent has established."Each side agreed to pay its own legal fees, and American recovered nothing from Google, according to an order signed by Judge John McBryde," USAToday reported.

"Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo wanted the case transferred because its sponsored search agreement says any disputes must be settled by courts there or another site picked by the company," local ABC TV reported. But the court found that did not apply to the lawsuit.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 12, 2009, 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jason Calacanis Offers $250,000 For Twitter Suggested Spot

Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis has offered Twitter $250,000 to appear in the suggested users area that newly signed up members see when they first join Twitter.

TechCrunch confirmed the offer with Twitter and pointed out the value of the spots could be substantial. People on the list can gain 10,000 new users a day or 3.6 million a year.

Calacanis sees the power of Twitter growing over the next 5 years and has offered $120,000 a year for a spot and said he would pay $250,000 for 2 years in advance. He also said he would be willing to limit his twits to his followers to 10 a day to avoid accusations of spamming.

Nice to see a value put on something on Twitter.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 12, 2009, 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Checkout Dropping Fee Breaks For Advertisers

Google Checkout - a PayPal-like service - launched in 2006 announced it will be raising its fees in May 5.

The official blog stated:

* Google Checkout's transaction processing fees will transition to a new tiered fee structure, where the rates will vary depending on a merchant's monthly sales processed through Checkout. For more details about the pricing changes, please visit our U.S. fees page and our U.K. fees page.

* With the new tiered fee structure, merchants can qualify for rates as low as 1.9% + $0.30 per transaction in the U.S., and 1.4% + £0.20 per transaction in the U.K.

* We will also be discontinuing the AdWords free transaction processing promotion at this time. As previously announced, Google Grants recipients will still be eligible for free donation processing until 2010.

The service offered breaks to advertisers and lower fees than competitor PayPal when it first launched, but is now offering similar pricing. If the couple of posts at Search Engine Watch forums are any indication the move could cost them many of their current users.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 12, 2009, 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Launching GrandCentral As Google Voice

Google is launching GrandCentral - that they purchased in 2007 for over $50 million - as Google Voice. The product is like Skype, a voice over IP service that offers free internet phone calls - "one phone number for all your phones for life" as GrandCentral noted.

The newly launched product will enable people to choose who's number gets forwarded to your cell phone or to voice mail. International calls will be for a small fee.

An interesting feature not offered by Skype is the ability to have your voicemail transcribed. The transcriptions can then be searched - a feature I am sure will get a lot of use.

Access to the new service should start soon - though apparently there are more than 15,000 people on the witing list as no new subscribers have been added since Google bought GrandCentral.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 12, 2009, 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Search Soars in Japan

Searches on Yahoo! sites grew 13% year-over-year in January - in Japan. Google sites, including YouTube grew just 5%. There is a caveat. This comScore data doesn't count mobile searches, and mobile is big in Japan.

Yahoo! enjoys 50% of searches in the Japanese search market:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 12, 2009, 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

LinkedIn Rolls Out Update to DirectAds

LinkedIn has experienced great success not only as a social network for career professionals but also in their monetization, normally a struggle for social sites. One of their advertising avenues is DirectAds and this week they're rolling out an update to the program.

Over at the LinkedIn blog, Senior Product Manager Jack Chau explained three of the enhancements included in the update:

Access to a global audience Now you can target professionals from Australia, Canada, India, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The US was already available.

More pricing options for more cost-effective advertising Pay-per-click has been added as an option, and cost per impression (CPM) will still remain an option.

Easier payments for DirectAds Advertisers won't be charged until after they have a clear picture on the CPM or the cost per click (CPC) for their ads.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 12, 2009, 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Maps Releases Instructional Video for Local Business Center

Google allows local businesses to provide content for their listing on Map search. Business owners can do so through the Local Business Center.

But like anything new, sometimes users need a little help. Google Maps has released an instructional video for the Local Business Center to help their users maximize their business listings.

Click here to watch it on YouTube or simply view the embedded video below:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 12, 2009, 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Launches New Image Search for iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android

iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android users in the US, UK and Japan are getting a brand spanking new image search from Google. Now image search results on these platforms return 20 results on a single page.

From the results, users can view a larger thumbnail image, visit the site where the image is hosted, or view the image alone in its full size. The new version also includes a filter where users can narrow their results to display people's faces, clip art, line drawings, or photo content. This type of filter was added to the regular Google Image Search last December.

To use the search, browse to Google.com on the iPhone, iPod Touch or Android browser and then select "Images" before searching.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 12, 2009, 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Reprices Stock Options for 15,000 Employees

Google has repriced the stock options for 15,642 employees (out of about 20,000). All employees were eligible for the program that ended this past Monday.

The reprice stock came in at $308.57. Since Google had been priced at upwards of $747 over a year ago, the repricing option was attractive to many of the search engine's employees.

Other shareholders are not as thrilled as they are stuck with their losses. The repricing could cost Google as much as $400 million in accounting charges.

via NYT

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 11, 2009, 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook Referring More Traffic to (Some) Big Sites than Google

Some big sites are getting big traffic, but it's not from the usual suspect of Google. Instead, it's from Facebook. PerezHilton.com and Cafemom.com are among the sites benefitting from the word of mouth and social networking going on at Facebook.

Interestingly enough, there is one more site benefitting from Facebook traffic: Twitter, whose buzz as of late seems a bit of a threat to both Facebook and Google. The threat is less for Facebook, who benefits from user mashups allowing status updates to appear on Twitter and vice versa.

Facebook sees about 1/3 of the U.S. traffic that Google does. So, it's surprising to see this trend happen so soon.

Still, Microsoft seems just a little more brilliant for becoming Facebook's search partner last year.

via AdAge

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 11, 2009, 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Google Enables Driving Directions on Map Maker

Google Map Maker has gotten a few nice updates lately. 16 maps of countries developed through Map Maker were released to the official Google Maps. Then Map Maker was made available to 27 different languages and accessible through the Google Maps API.

Now, Google Map Maker is getting Driving Directions. It works the same, and if you get directions that are a little off, you can correct them in Map Maker, true to its nature.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 11, 2009, 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Conductor Releases Study About Fortune 500 and Natural Search Trends

SEO measurement firm Conductor has released new data revealing natural search trends and their relationship to Fortune 500 firms. This data is particularly enlightening in the wake of a recent Google algorithm change, which many feel favors brands (but Matt Cutts denies).

The Fortune 500 as a group spent approximately $51 million / day on 88,792 keywords - yet only 20.82% of these keywords rank in the top 100 natural search results.
Large brand visibility is improving throughout natural search results, but even high performers struggle with inconsistent execution across brands.
Only 1.41% of the domains (not companies) surveyed showed a significant number of their terms in the top results. In all cases these companies had domains with significant visibility issues that offset their overall score.
46.76% of Fortune 500 companies have very low or non-existent visibility for their most advertised keywords.
Fortune 500 natural search visibility dropped 5.8% when search queries increased to 5 or more words.

"SEO is still in its infancy for the Fortune 500. From quarter to quarter you can easily see when brands and sectors have become effective in managing natural search," said Conductor CEO, Seth Besmertnik. "We're excited to be tracking the progress of these companies as the nascent search industry evolves."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 11, 2009, 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Beta Tests Interest-Based Advertising

Google is launching a beta test of "interest-based" display advertising. What that means is that Google will use information from your browser to offer up relevant ads on their partner sites and YouTube. For advertisers, the obvious benefit is (hopefully) reaching a more targeted audience, better traffic and higher conversion rates. For Google, the obvious benefit is mo' money.

Of course, the inevitable reaction to such news is "WHAT ABOUT MY PRIVACY?"

Personally, I like this type of advertising. If I'm researching cruises and an ad pops up with a deal better than the ones I've found, then that really helps me out as a consumer.

But I know there are those of you who are the opposite of me. It creeps you out that a big company like Google is checking into your browsing behavior and history. Here's what Google has to say about that, verbatim from the Official Google blog:

Transparency - We already clearly label most of the ads provided by Google on the AdSense partner network and on YouTube. You can click on the labels to get more information about how we serve ads, and the information we use to show you ads. This year we will expand the range of ad formats and publishers that display labels that provide a way to learn more and make choices about Google's ad serving.
Choice - We have built a tool called Ads Preferences Manager, which lets you view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser so that you can receive ads that are more interesting to you.
Control - You can always opt out of the advertising cookie for the AdSense partner network here. To make sure that your opt-out decision is respected (and isn't deleted if you clear the cookies from your browser), we have designed a plug-in for your browser that maintains your opt-out choice.

What are your thoughts? Do tell in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 11, 2009, 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Facebook Expands to Hebrew and Arabic; Bebo Expands to Latino Community

Facebook has expanded to include the Hebrew and Arabic languages. In a post on the Facebook blog, Ghassan Haddad wrote:

Meanwhile, Bebo has launched a Latino site for the U.S.

"Expanding into new markets is a key pillar of our growth strategy, and we see huge potential for the growing Latino audience in the U.S. Our platform allows users to connect with other users, entertainment and brands, both globally and locally. The richness of our experience lies in the user's ability to express him or herself - as evidenced in our new Lifestory feature - and in the ability to connect to people, media and brands through the Lifestream and our Open Media Platform," said Nicole Vanderbilt, VP International, Bebo.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 11, 2009, 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google GeoTargeting Patents Show Influence of Language, Location

I finally understand that patents are written in Gypsy language, or so it would seem. David Harry, aka TheGypsy, has interpreted yet another series of Google patents that give insight into International and local search results.

There are three patents he mentions, starting with one about "ordering of search results based on language and/or country of the search results" which starts with regular search ranking and then looks at language and reorders and does so again when country is factored in where possible.

The other patents suggests there is regional consideration employed within that subset, and usage of language by known or recognized country or region's use of langauge.

These applications show possible approaches and are well detailed by theGypsy. Thanks mate you translate the patents so well... but then again they are written in your native tongue. May also explain why you find them so easily.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 10, 2009, 9:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Docs Glitch Shares Some Customer Info

A glitch in Google Docs opened client information to be shared by non-authorised users, Cnet reported.

"Google discovered a privacy glitch that inappropriately shared access to a small fraction of word-processing and presentation documents stored on the company's online Google Docs service," Cnet stated.

Google claims only .05% of information were left vunerable during this period. Interestingly, FedEx used to say they lost under 1% of packages - but when you thought of the millions they delivered every day the number was over 100,000. Given the increased usage of Google Docs, that ,05% could also have been in the hundreds of thousands.

"Though the documents were shared only with people whom the Google Docs users had already shared documents, rather than with the world at large, the problem illustrates one downside of cloud computing, in which Internet servers host software previously run on a person's own computer," Cnet noted.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 10, 2009, 3:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google May Be Added To Dow Industrials

In the wake of some major blue chip companies falling in price, Google has been mentioned as a possible addition to the Dow Jones Industrial average, Reuters noted.

Cisco has also been named as a possible new entry. "Other candidates include high-profile household names such as the world's largest credit card network, Visa (V.N), or iPod maker, Apple."

Posted by Frank Watson on March 10, 2009, 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft Adds Maria Klawe to Board of Directors; Announces $0.13 Dividend

Microsoft has added a new member to their Board of Directors. Maria Klawe, Ph.D., president of Harvey Mudd College since 2006, brings the Board back to 10 members. Klawe was previously dean of engineering and a professor of computer science at Princeton University from 2003 to 2006.

"Maria has made significant research contributions to computer science and mathematics, and we are very fortunate to have her join Microsoft's board of directors," said Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman. "In particular, I think her close connection to university students and the way they shape computing trends will bring an important perspective to the board."

Microsoft also announced a dividend of $0.13. The dividend is payable on to June 18, 2009 to shareholders on record as of May 21, 2009.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 10, 2009, 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Matt Cutts Revisits 100 Link Maximum Per Page Recommendation

Matt Cutts took to his blog to talk about just how many links you can include on one page. The rule of thumb for a long time has been no more than 100 links per page, and Cutts says that recommendation hasn't changed.

But he clarified that it's not a hard line. Just because a page has more than 100 links does not automatically qualify it as a spam page.

Still, the PageRank will be diluted among the links. Google also may not follow or index all the links if there are hundreds.

Basically, Cutts' advice boils down to what Google really wants from site content: Develop with the reader in mind.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 10, 2009, 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

New Google Analytics Guide Offers Help for Beginners

Google Analytics has published a guide for beginners who are new to the product. Called the "Getting Started Guide," it's a new section of the Help Center for Google Analytics.

In it, you'll find the benefits of using Analytics (perhaps you've heard that you should be doing analytics but have no idea why), screenshots of the interface, installation help and more.

You can find the Getting Started Guide here or on the main page of Google Analytics help.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 10, 2009, 8:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Social Networking and Blogs Surpass Email in Popularity

With 67% of the worldwide internet population visiting, social networks and blogs are now outpacing email in popularity. They've become the 4th most popular online category, according to Nielsen Online.

"Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience," says John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online. "While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing. Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large. This study explains why."

Here are some more interesting nuggets of information on the matter from Nielsen:

One in every 11 minutes online globally is accounted for by social network and blogging sites.
The social network and blogging audience is becoming more diverse in terms of age: the biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to "Member Community" Web sites globally came from the 35-49 year old age group (+11.3 million).
Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in social networking. Nielsen found UK mobile Web users have the greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset, with 23 percent (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19 percent in the US (10.6 million people). These numbers are a big increase over last year - up 249 percent in the UK and 156 percent in the US.

Does this mean people will start responding to social media marketing over email marketing? Only time will tell. So will you when you leave a comment below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 10, 2009, 8:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Yahoo! Lowers Minimum Bid on Some Keywords

Yahoo! has announced that they have lowered the minimum bid on some keywords. They were quite vague about which ones. The reason given for the change was the economy and marketers' needs to maximize their budgets.

Advertisers will want to check in on their Yahoo! campaigns to see if the minimum bid change affects their campaigns. Yahoo! says some campaigns may turn from inactive to active because their bids now meet the minimum.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 10, 2009, 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google AdSense Releases News Widget

Google AdSense recently released a new widget that allows sites to place news on their site. It looks like your basic AdSense box, but with "powered by Google News" in the tab at the bottom instead. Take a look:

Users can select the type of news they wish to appear on the widget for their site. Also customizable are size of the frame, the topics, and the number of articles.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 10, 2009, 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Does No One Get Twitter? Der Spiegel Added To Not List

TechCrunch reported about an interview Twitter CEO William Evans gave to German magazine Der Spiegel late last week where he outlined some of their upcoming features, including alerting people to important local information.

And while many of the answers were insightful, its seems Der Spiegel does not understand the medium. Starting with their question of whether it promotes narcissism and stupdity to twits are not reporting but "simply twitter things which no sensible newspaper would ever print. Most of what is happening on Twitter of course is insignificant cackling knowledge of questionable value," Google translated.

Twitter is talking about being a global local alert system. Put Twitter on your mobile device and register a location and they can alert people to impending disasters and serious local problems.

Google should be worried about the impact of Twitter on the future use of the internet and not think of it as a "poor man's email". But even using that perspective, Twitter is a extraordinary communication tool; one that could relegate search to a lesser needed tool in the web users arsenal.

Should Gmail be concerned that Twitter is being used in lieu of emailing? Has there been a decline in emails that correlates to the increased usage of Twitter? How many former email conversations consisted of 140 characters or less? And as the site reminds us:

"The result of using Twitter to stay connected with friends, relatives, and coworkers is that you have a sense of what folks are up to but you are not expected to respond to any updates unless you want to. This means you can step in and out of the flow of information as it suits you and it never queues up with increasing demand of your attention."

Does it allow self-serving promotion? Of course, but so do all the social media and clever search engine optimizers - and for that matter traditional media is manipulated every day too.

The internet has always been a social medium reflected in its early preWeb usage of IRC channels and newsgroups. Email existed prior to the web as well and has always been the most used product on the internet. If Twitter is lowering its usage it could be a signal of a shift is the way people use the web.

Historically, simplicity and popularity have shaped the way the web has grown. In its early days, few industries - apart from gambling and the adult industry - could monetize the new medium. Then early influencers started to use the web to buy items that were simplified by the web like hotel rooms and airline tickets, which lead to more and more purchased items. People told others how easy getting hard to find things on the web was and how simple it was to buy all their Christmas presents. Ecommerce became the popular and pervasive way to buy things it is today.

Search engines too grew virally. Alta Vista, Lycos and Yahoo were the early popular engines. People had their favorites. Then Google arrived with its minimalist interface and rapid return of fairly relevant information and the rest is history. Yahoo and Microsoft cannot compete head on with Google, they have already lost that popularity contest.

Twitter is showing them how Google can be challenged. Develop community through social methods and people will make use of the product in ways the creators have not thought of, as well as build apps that help further promote its use.

With the addition of a search option, Twitter becomes a powerful tool for 'real time' search results. Google lags in its addition of current news items into its main search results and its news search has also been beaten by Twitter since it relies on major traditional news sources that write more detailed reports than quick 140 character eye witness exchanges and instantly posted photographs. Add this to the fact that only a small percentage of Google searchers use Google News - hence their addition into the regular search results.

Twitter's search engine, Summize, "is very good at cataloging real-time information from its users," as NetworkWorld notes.

If Google does not buy Twitter, the company that does get it - if they decide to sell - could be part of the future direction of the web.

Funny, Twitter, in many ways seems a lot like early Google. The pithy About Us section seems minimalist but informative. Their position on monetization almost mirrors Google's prior to AdWords.

"Twitter has many appealing opportunities for generating revenue but we are holding off on implementation for now because we don't want to distract ourselves from the more important work at hand which is to create a compelling service and great user experience for millions of people around the world. While our business model is in a research phase, we spend more money than we make".

Its company philosophy "of keeping things simple and intuitive" seems similar to the "do no evil" mantra of Google.

Clearly, the company sees itself as a changing agent. As the site states, "Twitter solves information overload by changing expectations traditionally associated with online communication."

The term 'twittering" may become part of the general vocabulary quicker than "googling". After all, the company's "fail whale" is already becoming an icon, and a reflection of Twitter's effort - lifting a whale with a flock of tiny birds. They seem to be succeeding.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 9, 2009, 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Google Stockpiling Cash: Storing Nuts For Economic Winter Or Just Plain Nuts?

Seems every time Google's CEO Eric Schmidt mentions the harsh economic times we are experiencing the company's stock price drops. Now, following his comments last week about the company stockpiling cash with no immediate plans of acquiring any new companies - Twitter seems to be everyone else's popular choice - the stock has fallen again (nearly 5% at the time of writing this).

The possibility of Google acquiring Twitter has been discussed by many recently, as has the idea of Twitter challenging Google in the future.

Marketing Pilgrim's Andy Beal suggests that Schmidt's denial of plans to buy Twitter could be double talk to allow the price to drop.

"Don't believe Google's slight-of-hand talk about the timing not being right. The timing is perfect! While other companies pull back on spending-causing Twitter's valuation to drop due to lack of interest-Google can fly in under the radar and pick up perhaps the most important internet start-up since Facebook," Beal stated.

Google recently has talked about long term plays to help the economy such as going green, which Schmidt has stated will improve Google's bottom line.

Google is in a tough place themselves - stock prices have drop more than 50% over the past 12 months and over 60% from its high of nearly $750, just over 12 months ago.

Recent layoffs and closing of products once thought of as Google's move to aggregate the world's information may be eroding investor confidence. Storing nuts for a harsh economic winter shows investors that Google has no faith in its own industry. This approach is not what got Google to the forefront in the first place. They were innovators who took a stand and maintained its search core while building other ancillary products and buying complimentary companies.

Buying other companies and investing in others helps stimulate the economy at a time when there is a need for more jobs and security for the ones that exist. Even if Google does intend to hold on to its cash, making such a public statement about it may not have been the wisest move.

Obviously, Schmidt's public statements is not the only contributing factor to Google stock price drop and being a squirrel right now could be a smart long term play, but is not a leader's play. Has Google joined the status quo? It may be a safe play, but not one indicative of an industry leader.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 9, 2009, 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Earth Adds 3D Versions of Santa Rosa and Lucerne

Google Earth has added two more cities to its ever-growing list of 3D locales. Santa Rosa, California and Lucerne, Switzerland can now be virtually enjoyed in their 3D glory.

Santa Rosa:

Lucerne:

If you'd like to do some 3D modeling, you can use Google's Sketchup tool to do so. Then upload your models to Google's 3D Warehouse to save and share.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 9, 2009, 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Utah Legislature Attempts to Regulate Keywords - Again

Kate Kaye at ClickZ.com is reporting that the Utah House has passed H.B. 450, which is another law the state is considering to regulate keywords advertising. The Senate has until Thursday to pass the law, as Utah's legislature only meets 45 days a year.

Unlike past regulation attempts, this version would give immunity to the search ad providers like Google and Yahoo. Instead, the burden would be on the advertisers. Even then, advertisers would be subject to injunction and attorney's fees. In other words, advertisers wouldn't face damages under this law. (I'm sure some lawyers will try to find other nifty laws to facilitate the extraction damages.)

Additionally, this law restricts its reach to Utah only. Advertisers using geotargeting to reach Utah consumers would be affected.

The law is being lobbied for solely by 1-800 Contacts, which has a history of being a proponent of keyword regulation. The major search engines are against the bill, despite its limited scope.

Related Reading:
Utah Legislators Doing Research -- After They Passed the Law
Utah's Misguided Trademark Protection Act
Election Year Brings New Efforts to Regulate Search Engine Data Collection

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 9, 2009, 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CitySquares Tweaks Their Search (and Rocks Online Reputation Management in the Process!)

Last week CitySquares announced the expansion of their local search to all 50 states. In my coverage of the announcement, I noticed that typing in my hometown of Raleigh brought up no results.

CitySquares Lead Developer Michael LeBarron noticed the post and commented on the blog that indeed Raleigh was included in the expansion.

I emailed him privately to tell him how I was conducting the search. It turns out that CitySquares recognized "Raleigh, NC," but I was typing in just "Raleigh." For whatever reason, the search didn't recognize the city without the state.

Michael went to work on it, and by Friday I had an email in my inbox saying the fix was complete. I tried it out this morning and wow - what a fix!

Now, when I search for Raleigh, CitySquares smartly asks me which Raleigh I, in fact, am searching for:

Incidentally, this is a fantastic example of a brand listening to the conversation about them online. Not only did CitySquares engage in the conversation, they made a change to their product that benefits everyone.

If you want to know how to be as good as CitySquares at online reputation management, check out these posts:

How to Bury Negative Online Mentions of You - Intermediate Level Tactics
Pssst. People are Talking... About Your Business!
SEO for Brand Reputation Management
Big Brands Wage Reputation Battles on Many Fronts
61% of Reluctant Consumers Can Be Positively Swayed Online
Online Reviews Second Only to Word of Mouth in Purchase Decisions
Google's Mobile Ratings Increase Need for Online Reputation Management
Need To Track Your Brand Online? Try Search Monitor

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 9, 2009, 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Website Optimizer Releases Techie Guide

Landing page geeks, get excited. The team Google Website Optimizer has released a Techie Guide to their tool. In order to know what the heck the guide is talking about you should know HTML, have a basic understanding of JavaScript and how cookies work. The advanced topics require knowledge of PHP and/or ASP.

Included in the Techie Guide are:

A detailed explanation of the Website Optimizer experiment scripts

How to implement segmentation in your experiments

How to test with dynamic content

The guide is available as a free download (PDF) at google.com/websiteoptimizer/techieguide.

Related Reading:
Website Optimizer Now Tracks with Google Analytics Code GA.js
Google Website Optimizer Launches New YouTube Channel
Google Website Optimizer Launches New Help Forum for Those Pesky Landing Page Testing Questions (and Answers!)

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 9, 2009, 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yahoo! Search Marketing Adds Keyword Suggestion Feature to Help Section

Yahoo! Search Marketing has updated their Help Center to provide keyword suggestions.

Industry specific market research is provided for the following niches:

Apparel
Automotive
Education
Financial Services
Healthcare
Home Improvement
Legal Services
Travel
Wireless Services

If you have a different niche, simply use the Add Keywords tool. You can find the tool in your Ad Group details page. Click on "Add Keywords," then select from the following:

Quick Add
Choose from List
Research Keywords

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 9, 2009, 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, raise my rent. Microsoft is the good guy!

There is a memorable moment in Blazing Saddles, when Sheriff Bart says, "Well, raise my rent. You are the kid."

Dave Naylor.jpg I had a similar ephiphany last month at SES London 2009, when David Naylor of Bronco said that Microsoft is the good guy in the search engine industry during a session on "Brand & Reputation Management."

Now, I should disclose that I was the director of corporate communications at Lotus Development Corp. back in the late 1980s, when our relationship with Microsoft was -- ah -- "complicated." They provided the operating system that our applications ran on; while they offered applications that we competed with.

During the 1990s, I was the director of corporate communications at Ziff-Davis. And our relationship with Microsoft was also -- ah -- "complex." On the "church" side of Ziff-Davis, our 400 editors and reporters wrote comparative, lab-based, product reviews that treated Microsoft "without fear or favor," like any other vendor. On the "state" side of Ziff-Davis, Microsoft bought a ton of advertising in our magazines, on our websites and for our cable TV channel. Plus, Bill Gates was a frequent keynote speaker at our conferences, and Microsoft paid a chunk of money for big booths at our trade shows.

So, when I got into the search engine industry in early 2002, I admit that I had some preconceived notions about the folks from Redmond. And I secretly chuckled when I heard that Google's informal corpate motto was "Don't be evil." I knew which company they were taking a jab at.

But that was then and this is now.

During the past seven years, Microsofties have been model citizens. Heck, even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has impressed me by working globally to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and working locally to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.

Still, it came as a surprise to me when Naylor said such nice things about Microsoft. It reminded me of another memorable quote from Blazing Saddles, "I think Mongo here's taken a liking to you."

So, I interviewed Naylor right after the "Brand & Reputation Management" session. In the early part of the video interview, he shared a few tips. He also emphasized the importance of identifying who is posting negative material about your company or brand. But half way through the video interview, I asked to Nayor discuss Microsoft's reputation and why it has improved. He says Microsoft now excels at handling not just business to business but business to consumer and Google has challenges they have not yet resolved.

David Naylor, CEO, Bronco Internet, on reputation management at SES London

As luck would have it, one of the people who attended the "Brand & Reputation Management" session was Mel Carson, the adCenter Community Manager in Europe for Microsoft. Carson joined Microsoft back in the summer of 2005, so we never crossed swords in the old days. As part of Microsoft Advertising, his role is to build relationships within the online advertising community to support, educate and evangelise through Microsoft adCenter industry forums, and to speak about internet marketing at conferences, trade shows and other events.

For the last year Carson has been writing a digital blog for Media Week and at his own site, Mel Carson. You can also follow him at http://Twitter.com/MelCarson. He is a credit to his company.

In the best tradition of ambush journalism, I interviewed Carson about his favorite panel sessions from SES London. He cited panels on topics such as social media, SEO, search behavior, and keyword research. But about half way through the interview, I asked Carson about the changing reputation of Microsoft and why Microsoft is now seen in a more positive light.

Mel Carson, Microsoft adCenter, highlights panels at SES London 2009

So, there you have it. You may have noticed this before. But that was the first time that I recognized that Microsoft wasn't evil. It's the good guy.

Both Naylor and Carson will be speaking at SES New York 2009 in two weeks at the "Extreme Makeover: Live Ad Copy & Continuity Clinic" on Thursday. So, you can ask them about this topic, before or after they examine your ads and landing pages "without fear or favor."

Well, don't just stand there looking stupid, grasping your hands in pain. How about a round of applause for the Redmond Kid?

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 9, 2009, 2:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Guy Kawasaki says Twitter is Marketing Weapon in SES Webcast

Guy Kawasaki and Matt McGowan just finished their SES Webcast. More than 500 people registered to hear them talk about Kawasaki's new book, "Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition."

Guy Kawasaki.jpg But most of the 60 questions during Q&A were about "Twitter As A Tool For Social Media," which is the subject of Kawasaki's opening keynote at SES New York on Tuesday, March24, 2009.

Here are just some of the realtime results on Twitter for Kawasaki's SES Webcast:

kandeezie: @la_panique It's just that there are so many on Twitter like Guy Kawasaki that use it well...at least follow a few more people...

ByronG: Best takeaway from Guy Kawasaki webcast: Use TwitterHawk to generate specific search conditions!

Vanessa_Bright: All top - http://alltop.com/ - an "online magazine rack" of popular topics (including marketing) - from webinar with Guy Kawasaki

markivey: guy kawasaki:3 people tweeting 5-10 Tweets/day, "the rest is me." His resources: Alltop Science, Psy, marketing, most popular;stumbleupon

shonali: I've never heard Guy Kawasaki speak before, so that was the most interesting part of #sesguycast for me. He can get snarky, eh?

jyo_ca: wow - this is like mini Twitter U with Prof Guy Kawasaki - very practical, useful stuff

inflatemouse: Guy Kawasaki thinks you should have to pay for Twitter like SMS. #idisagree

ohltweets: getting a little chuckle out of guy kawasaki on twitter. #sesguycast

johnsantangelo: listing to guy kawasaki. love his response to that dumbass question

GregLiveBrand: Watching a Guy Kawasaki video... this is awesome!

patratu: guy kawasaki :use twitter to aggregate coverage on your brand - "online magazine rack" on topics of interest

kirkhateswork: Listening to Guy Kawasaki on SES speaking about twitter, "The only other way to reach thousands of people directly are super bowl ads" $$$

tezindenver: listening to Guy Kawasaki streamed from Search Engine Strategies Conf. guykawasaki

lookadoo: Guy Kawasaki says, "Twitter is a great marketing weapon to reach thousands, millions of people absolutely free."

AuldHouse: reading the Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. Thinking of making my personal mantra the same for AuldHouse....Teach, Learn, Cause Trouble.

The Guy Kawasaki SES Webcast was recorded and will be posted at http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/webcasts/. These search engine marketing (SEM) and interactive marketing and advertising webcasts are FREE and available for up to 3 months On Demand.

Since only a handful of people with questions had the opportunity to get answers during the 60-minute SES Webcast, we're going to try to get answers and post them on the Search Marketing News Blog here on Search Engine Watch. Nevertheless, based on today's event, I expect that the Q&A after Kawasaki's opening keynote at SES New York will also be very active.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 6, 2009, 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AdSense Publisher Sues Google - And Wins

"What if everyone whose account was canceled sued Google?"

That's what a Google litigation paralegal asked the judge in a Palo Alto small claims court judge this week. The judge ruled in favor of an AdSense publisher who brought a suit against Google for canceling his account without giving reason - and not paying up.

It's a tale that has been repeated on blogs and forums across the internet, and it's a problem that Google is notorious for being secretive about.

Aaron Greenspan signed up for AdSense in March 2008 in order to make a little money off of his site, Think Computer Corporation. Nine months later, Google canceled his account with no warning, no reason and no payment of the $721 Think Computer's site had earned.

Greenspan emailed and phoned a slew of people at Google only to learn there was no customer service for AdSense and no one that could give him an answer to why his account was canceled.

Many times, this kind of cancellation results when site owners use AdWords to send traffic to an AdSense-laced page. Greenspan had tried AdWords, but stopped the campaign months before he tried AdSense.

After getting nowhere with Google, Greenspan tried the justice system. Since lawyers aren't allowed in small claims court, litigation paralegal Stephanie Milani was sent by Google. When asked, she could give no reason why the account was terminated. Milani said that the $721 was refunded to the advertisers and reiterated Google's policy - that any publisher can be terminated at any time for any reason.

The judge asked if an account could be terminated because of their eye color. He then ruled in favor of Greenspan.

Enter Milani's question, "What if everyone whose account was canceled sued Google?" That sounds like a question for Google, not a small claims court judge.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 6, 2009, 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)

Yahoo! Releases Inquisitor for the iPhone

Last year, Yahoo! acquired the assets for search suggestion plugin Inquisitor. At the time, Inquisitor was a plug-in for Apple's Safari web browser. Since the acquisition, Yahoo! has made the plugin available for Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Now, Yahoo! is launching an Inquisitor application for the iPhone. The app is available for free on iTunes' app store. Take a look:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 6, 2009, 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Adds Recent Earthquake Info to Search Results

If you do a search for "earthquakes" on Google, now you'll get info on the most recent earthquake activity. This information is listed at the top of the results. Here's an example of a search for just "earthquakes" -

You can also narrow the search to a specific region. Here's a search for "earthquake California" -

Interestingly enough, this info was not included on a search for "earthquake New Jersey," despite the incidence of earthquakes in the Garden State in recent weeks.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 6, 2009, 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Matt Cutts Clarifies Google's New Preference of Brands

The search world has been abuzz for the past week or two with the news that Google now prefers brands in its search results, giving sites owned by big brands a sudden boost in rankings in the latest algorithm update.

This week, Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team, recorded a YouTube video for the Google Webmaster Central channel explaining the changes.

According to Cutts, the "simple change" is not so much about brands, but about elements that go into a brand, including "trust, authority, reputation, PageRank, high quality."

"I don't think of it as putting more weight on brands. We really don't think about 'brands' in Search Quality that much," Cutts says. "It's not that we try to always return brands. We try to return whatever we think the best results are for users."

Cutts says the change, referred to internally as "Vince's Change," for the team member that worked on it, is not big enough to be considered an update. Rather, it's one of over 300 or 400 changes to its ranking algorithms that Google makes every year, which affects a relatively small number of queries, he said.

For webmasters, this change shouldn't have a big effect on the way they go about their business, according to Cutts.

"The net upshot of this change is pretty simple. We try to return high-quality results, we think a lot about trust, reputation, authority, PageRank. And so, what you should be doing doesn't change: try to make a great site. Try to make it a site that is so fantastic that you become known as an authority in your niche," Cutts said. "And it doesn't have to be a big niche. It doesn't have to be a huge, well known keyword. It can be a smaller niche, and if you're still the expert, that's the sort of thing that people are going to want to link to, that they'll talk about, the sort of thing people really enjoy. Those are the sorts of sites, the experts, that we want to bring back."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on March 6, 2009, 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

AOL Turns on One Clicks for Pro Athletes

If you've ever wanted to look up a pro athlete's stats, you know it can take several clicks to find the information you're looking for. Now, AOL is making stat-finding easier by turning on One Clicks for pro athletes.

One Clicks puts answers directly in the search results. Say, for example, you wanted to check on NHL player Erik Cole's stats with the Edmonton Oilers. He's just this week been traded back to the Carolina Hurricanes and you want to know if it's going to benefit the 2006 Stanley Cup Champions.

Search AOL for Erik Cole and here's what you get:

Notice the One Clicks results below the paid results. (Hopefully that logo will get updated to show the Hurricanes logo anyday now).

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 6, 2009, 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Search Engine Industry has its own Version of March Madness

It's that time of year again. The search engine industry has its own version of March Madness, squeezing multiple events into the same month.

Guy Kawasaki.jpg If I were to create brackets, then Search Engine Strategies New York would rank as my #1 favorite. (Hey, I've been attending this conference and expo since 2002, when it was still held in Boston. And I'm speaking at three sessions at SES New York 2009 and moderating a fourth. So, I voted with my feet a long time ago, although I should disclose that SES is now a client.) But there are other conferences and forums that are also vying for your attention.

You can't attend them all, so choices need to be made. So, without further ado, here are the four top seeds in this year's March Madness -- the Final Four, if you will, in the 2009 search engine marketing conference tournament:

#1 Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York, March 23-27, 2009.

I think this is a must-attend event. And approximately 5,000 marketers, corporate decision makers, web developers and search engine marketing (SEM) specialists and rookies, including pay-per-click (PPC) advertisers and search engine optimization (SEO) consultants, attend SES New York each year to network and learn the tips, tactics and strategies that aren't covered online.

If you're still on the fence about attending, today is the day to get off the fence. If you register by March 6 (that's today), then you can save up to $200. And if you want a sneak preview of the opening keynote, listen to Guy Kawasaki speak during his Free Webcast at 10 a.m. (PST), 1 p.m. (EST), 6 p.m. (GMT).

Or, check out the video below, which provides an overview of Search Engine Strategies.

Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo

#2 SES Amsterdam Forum, 16-17 maart, 2009

Okay, so you need to read Dutch to find out more details about this event. But, if you can read Dutch, then this Forum is targeted at you.

For those of you who want a hint in English about this event, SES Amsterdam will feature a number of workshops designed to educate the beginning SEO/SEM in addition to advanced maximizer sessions for those with years of experience. Topics such as Web 2.0 trends, social media and blogging will also be covered.

The Chair of SES Amsterdam is Henk van Es and the Programming Director for it is Joost de Valk. And this event is actively supported by Taskforce Search the Dutch branch of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

#3. PubCon South, March 11-13, 2009

WebmasterWorld's PubCon will hold its first-ever Texas event celebrating all things search related under the sunny skies of the state's capital Austin. The leading search and Internet marketing gurus will gather for three exciting days of cutting-edge multi-track sessions at Austin's Norris Executive Conference Center.

I interviewed Brett Tabke, the founder of WebmasterWorld, at Search Engine Strategies London last month. Brett talked about his participation on the "SEO: Where to Next?" panel and also gave a quick preview of PubCon South.

Brett Tabke, WebmasterWorld, on the future of SEO

#4 Search 2009, 13 mars 2009

Okay, so you need to read French to find out more details about this event. But, if you can read French, then this conference is targeted at you.

I interviewed Marianne Dabbadie, the CEO of Evalir last month at SES London. Marianne discussed her favorite panels and also mentioned Evalir's partnership with Veille Magazine and Abondance in organizing Search 2009, which is dedicated to vertical and enterprise search and is opening its doors to search marketing and optimizing.

Marianne Dabbadie, CEO, Evalir, on SES London and Search 2009

There are other events, including ad:tech Syndey, March 10 - 11, 2009, the International Search Summit in Oslo, March 13, 2009, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, March 29-April 1, 2009, and SMX Sydney, April 2-3.

These are the Elite Eight in my March Madness metaphor. So, check out their agendas and see what they offer. No one can attend them all -- unless, of course, they own a private jet.

Starting next week, I plan to focus on SES New York 2009. Since this event features two keynotes, an Orion Panel, 65 conference sessions, six SEM training workshops, SEO training, and web analytics training, I'm planning to drill down into the choices facing attendees. You can't attend everything -- unless, of course, you bring a team of five of more people to the conference and expo.

(That's what my firm is planning to do. But that's another story for another day.)

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 6, 2009, 6:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Yahoo Competes with Facebook; Facebook Competes with Twitter

Yahoo! is now competing with Facebook Connect. Through a partnership with JS-Kit, Yahoo! Updates is now available on over 600,000 websites. The joint effort helps sites bring social networking functionality to their sites. (Google's Friend Connect is also a player in this space.)

Meanwhile, Facebook is competing with Twitter. It had been rumored that Facebook sought to acquire Twitter, but the deal fell through (apparently because Twitter wanted to go after search). Now, Facebook is going after Twitter by adding more live-stream features to their network.

Last year, Facebook updated user profile pages and the user experience, focusing on streams of updates by friends. Now, public profiles and organizations are getting pages that look more like user pages. The focus, again, is on the real-time stream of updated information.

Additionally, Facebook is updating their home page with the live-stream concept in mind. The new home page will begin rolling out next week. In the meantime, here's a preview:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 5, 2009, 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google AdSense Allows Feed Ad Review

Google AdSense launched a feed ad program last August. Now, they're enabling users to review their ads before they appear in the posts.

The feature is called the Ad Review Center. Users can approve or disapprove of ads before they go into the feeds.

To do so, login to your AdSense account. Then look for the Ad Review Center in the 'Competitive Ad Filter' section under the 'AdSense Setup' tab. Choose the Client-ID starting with ca-feed-pub.

You'll have to put your ads on hold for 24 hours before you can filter through them. During that time, no ads will be served to your feeds, but afterwards you can go through the ad approval process.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 5, 2009, 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Twitter's Big Search Plans: A Google Killer?

AdAge has the scoop on Twitter's plans for search. Could this possibly be a real challenge to Google?

Last year, Twitter acquired Summize, which was a Twitter search developed on the API. Twitter search is increasingly popular, especially for finding real-time chatter on a given topic. Recently, a Greasemonkey script was created to incorporate Twitter search into Google results (for those who install the add-on in Firefox).

But Twitter has bigger plans. They want to add a Q&A feature that harnesses the collective - and immediate - knowledge of the Twitterverse. Think Yahoo! Answers meets Twitter Search. Answers sites have been growing in popularity at a rapid pace. This could be a very smart move for Twitter.

Anecdotally, I've been seeing people using Twitter before checking with Google. It makes sense. Ask people from your trusted network instead of searching through tens or hundreds of results on your own - and then deciphering how trustworthy the information is.

If Twitter focuses on search, it's easy to see how they could then monetize their network (finally): search ads.

It's no wonder that Google has its eye on Twitter. From the CEO calling it a "poor man's email" (postering??) to rumors that it may seek to acquire Twitter, this is an exciting space to watch.

Oh, and Twitter passes my branding test. Twitter is definitely being used as a verb!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 5, 2009, 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Google AdSense Offers Expandable, Rich Media Ads

Google AdSense is introducing expandable ads to their ad offering. Expandable ads are ones that increase when an action is taken. With some networks, ads increase in size when a user mouses over or scrolls a page. But AdSense's expandable ads will increase only when clicked on.

The AdSense expandable ads will only increase up to double the width or height of the original display. Users can click to close the ad at any time. The ads can include rich media such as video and images.

Advertisers will pay based on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. CPC ads will only cost the advertiser when users click through to the landing page.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 5, 2009, 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

AOL's Platform-A Launches in Canada

AOL's advertising arm, Platform-A has extended its offerings to Canada. The launch combines networks already available in Canada, such as Advertising.com, which AOL owns. Platform-A will reach 22.5 million unique visitors a month in Canada, which is 93% of the online audience.

"Today's launch enables advertisers to leverage the strong Canadian presence established by the AOL Canada properties and popular niche sites, such as Engadget and TMZ.com from AOL's MediaGlow publishing unit, which reach more than 10 million Canadians monthly,* in order to reach a highly engaged audience of online consumers," said James Prudhomme, Senior Director, Platform-A Canada. "With the scale and reach of our network, Platform-A Canada offers a cost-effective way for marketers to reach their targeted audiences at scale through the delivery of highly engaging and effective advertising for maximum value and results, which is crucial in today's economic environment."

Related Reading:
Greg Coleman Named President of AOL's Platform-A AOL's Platform-A Reaches Now Reaches 160 Million in Europe
AOL's Platform-A Collaborates with T-mobile for 2 Day, Billion Impression Ad Blitz

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 5, 2009, 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google's Kaushik Says Measuring Clicks Is For Idiots, Bounce Rates Are It

It seems to be denigrate users week at Google. CEO Eric Schmidt called Twitter a "poor man's email", now the company's analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik has called website owners who use clicks or hits as measurement idiots.

Speaking at a keynote address at a conference hosted by the Magazine Publishers of America trade association on Tuesday, Kaushik said HITS stood for "How Idiots Track Success" to him, MediaPost reported.

Interestingly his belief that bounce rates should be of major attention could be a tip of the hand in its prominence in the search algorithm.

"What does a high bounce rate tell you? Visitors are effectively saying, "I came, I puked, I left," said Kaushik, MediaPost reported.

Has Google gotten so jaded that it no longer cares about the users? It may be time to reassess their position in the world and the ability these "idiots" have to go to another source for their information - after all they do not create the information they just gather it. What happens when the "Trust Rank" they place so much stock in turns on them because of such comments?

Posted by Frank Watson on March 4, 2009, 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

YouTube Surpasses 100 Million U.S. Viewers for the First Time?

This just handed me...according to an email from comScore about their press release distributed on PR Newswire and posted on their website, YouTube has just surpassed 100 million U.S. viewers for the first time. Ironically, there was no online video with the announcement.

Nevertheless, this is big news. According to the January 2009 data release today by the comScore Video Metrix service, more than 147 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 101 videos per viewer in January. This means 76.8% of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed 14.8 billion online videos during the month.

That's more people than watched Super Bowl XLIII on NBC!

According to comScore, the duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes. This means that the average online video viewer watched 356 minutes of video in January -- approximately 6 hours a month.

That's more time than the Super Bowl pre-game, game and post-game coverage combined -- including the half-time show!

Leading the way was YouTube. You remember them. The video sharing site that Google acquired for $1.65 billion back in the fall of 2006.

100.9 million viewers watched 6.3 billion videos on YouTube.com in January -- 62.6 videos per viewer that month. That's makes YouTube the top U.S. video property. YouTube.com also accounted for more than 99% of the 6.4 billion videos viewed at Google Sites. This means the number of videos viewed at Google Video is now round off error.

And Yahoo! Video, which began as a video search engine, was launched in February 2008 with a new focus on Yahoo-hosted video only. In other words, it became a video sharing site -- like YouTube.

So, I think it's time to declare that video search engines are dead. They were killed by their siblings, video sharing sites. Even MySpace, which ranks second with 473 million videos viewed in January, is a video sharing site.

Since neither YouTube nor MySpace crawl the video on your website or blog, I think it is also time to declare that video search engine optimization is dead. You might still want to optimize your videos for YouTube, but if you don't upload them to YouTube, they will never be found in a YouTube search.

And YouTube search is just one of many ways that people discover videos on YouTube. I talked about this at SES London 2009 -- Li Evans of Key Relevance interviewed me about this surprising outcome afterwords. Check out the video interview below.

Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR discusses YouTube and Video Marketing

I plan to share this case study again at SES New York 2009 -- at the "Video Search Engine Optimization: 2009 and Beyond" session. Yes, this session will look at "how video search engine optimization (VSEO) has become the most important new use of search engine optimization today."

Hey, the description was written before the news was just handed to me. So, this should make for a pretty interesting discussion. Li is on the panel again, along with Gregory Markel, the Founder/President of Infuse Creative, Henry Hall, the Senior Product Manager of Microsoft Live Search, and Matthew Liu, the Product Manager of YouTube Sponsored Videos. The moderator is Jeff Ferguson, SES Advisory Board member and Director of Online Marketing at Napster.

Come early to get a front row seat. Or sit in the back or along the side of the room, near an electrical outlet, if you plan to live blog the session. Or, heck, just Tweet about it on your cell phone. The death of video search engines and video search engine optimization are going to be hot topics.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 4, 2009, 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Is Google's CEO That Stupid: Twitter "A Poor Man's Email"

Google CEO Eric Schmidt made some comments about social networking tools like Twitter, yesterday, that has to question how in touch he is to this burgeoning industry.

""Speaking as a computer scientist, I view all of these as sort of poor man's email systems," the Silicon Valley Insider reported he said at Morgan Stanley's technology conference.

Schmidt showed his lack of Twitter experience by not comprehending the concept of 140 character messages. His speech went on to plug Google's own social networking tools but downplayed any possibility of thinking Twitter could be the new method of search.

"Twitter's success is wonderful, and I think it shows you that there are many, many new ways to reach and communicate, especially if you are willing to do so publicly," the Valley Insider quoted Schmidt as saying.

Twitter is testing the use of a search option in some users interfaces right now, and if they continue down this road could be someone who seriously challenges Google. True it may not grab a lion's share of the search market but it could grab the immediate searches of its many members and down the road lead to a new way we interact with search - finding it at the interface of tools we are using - funny how Google returned their search button to Gmail - and not a site we go to at the start.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 4, 2009, 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Google Returns Search Web Option To Gmail

Seems there were enough vocal opponents to Google's recent removal of the "Search the Web" option in Gmail for them to reinstall it.

There was an online petition, Gadget code to create your own search box and a few other reactions to Google's dropping of the search option inside gmail.

Amazing, or maybe a ploy to bring people's attention to that way of searching? Not really likely but some of Google's recent moves have definitely shown signs of using a new approach to strengthening their position.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 4, 2009, 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AdMob Lowers Minimum Bid Prices for Geo-Targeted, Non 'Big-4' Carrier Ads

Mobile advertising vendor AdMob has made changes to its minimum bids for geo-targeted ads. Already in effect, the changes affect the following:

For iPhone ads targeting all United States traffic (i.e., all US with no further targeting options selected), the minimum bid will decrease from $0.10 to $0.05.
For non-iPhone ads targeting all countries and carriers (i.e., no further targeting options selected), the minimum bid will decrease from $0.03 to $0.01.

Minimum bids for ads targeting specific carriers is also being affected. Targeting the big 4 US carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile & Verizon) will NOT change, and ranges from $0.11 - $0.15. Targeting for all other carriers will decrease from between $0.11 - $0.15 to $0.05.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 4, 2009, 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEMPO Names 2009 Officers

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, has elected a new slate of officers for 2009. Jeffrey Pruitt, formerly SEMPO president and executive vice president of corporate partnerships, iCrossing, was elected chairman, replacing outgoing chairman Dana Todd, CMO and co-founder at Newsforce.

Sara Holoubek, corporate strategy consultant, replaces Pruitt as SEMPO's president. Ron Jones, president and CEO of Symetri Internet Marketing, was elected vice president of SEMPO, and Dave Fall, vice president, product management, search technology, at DoubleClick, Inc., was elected treasurer. Jones and Fall effectively swapped the positions they held last year. Chris Boggs, director of search engine optimization for Rosetta, was re-elected secretary.

The newly elected officers will begin their one-year terms on April 1.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on March 4, 2009, 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gen Y's Notice Social Network Ads, Claim Indifference

In a recent episode of the TNT show "Trust Me" about an advertising agency in Chicago, the Creative Director's teenage daughter claimed she wasn't affected by advertising. He asked her why she chose to purchase Nike athletic shoes. She said "I don't know, I just did it." The clever dad retorted, "Just Do It. Where have I heard that before?"

The scene, whether it tried to or not, depicted the reality of how people feel about advertising: the notice it but claim to be unaffected by it.

The latest data released by PMN shows just how real this sentiment is among the Gen Y demographic:

62 percent of Gen Y's have visited a brand or fan page on a social network, but only 48 percent have joined
84 percent noticed ads on social networks, 74 percent say they click infrequently/never (36 percent saying they don't click on ads at all).
Only 19 percent say they find ads on social networks relevant.
51 percent say they'd prefer a separate social network to manage their brand interactions.

But does that mean social network ads (which are primarily display ads) completely worthless? Many online marketers know that display ads can play an important role in the marketing funnel. This means that people may not click on display ads, but it can drive them to search. In other words, display ads are good for branding.

This brings us back to the Gen Y-ers. They may find display ads "irrelevant" when they're just surfing their social network, but when they go to make a purchase, they'll likely "Just Do It" without even realizing why.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 4, 2009, 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Online Consumer Spending Drops in February 2009

Consumer spending in February 2009 dropped significantly from January, according to a report by Coremetrics. Those who shopped online during February purchased 13% fewer items. Website sessions that resulted in purchases declined by 3%.

Page views per session dropped 1%, product views per session dropped 2.5% and average time on site went down 4.5%.

The report also found:

Gifts retailers and Jewelers -- both traditional winners on Valentine's Day -- reported 23% and 15% increases in order sessions respectively. However, the average dollar value of those orders did not match these increases, with a modest increase of 4% for gifts retailers and a decrease of 14.3% for jewelers. These numbers illustrate that even on those occasions when consumers want to spend, they are spending in a more restrained fashion than in the past.
Department stores were hit hard by a 13% drop in shopping cart sessions and a near 10% drop in order sessions. However, department stores did an excellent job of appealing to a smaller group of consumers, reporting increases of 2% and 13.4% in the average number of items per order and their average dollar value.
Apparel, Health and Beauty, Home Goods, Outdoor Goods and Specialty retailers all reported decreases in order sessions of 12.6%, 9.6%, 5.2%, 10.8% and 7.2% respectively.

"The online economy is reflecting what is happening in the broader markets," said John Squire, chief strategy officer for Coremetrics. "Consumers are being increasingly selective about when and where they make their online purchases, which means that we can't expect the online sector to power us out of this recession over night. That's why retailers are becoming more analytical about launching marketing programs that aggressively target consumers with personalized, relevant promotions designed to get them to open their wallets."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 4, 2009, 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook Marketplace: Now Powered by Oodle

Facebook launched its Marketplace in 2007, giving users the ability to sell household goods via the social network. Now, Marketplace has been given an overhaul, which has been developed by classifieds vendor Oodle.

If you're currently using Marketplace, you'll have the option to transfer your item(s) to the updated version.

If you want to access Marketplace, search for it in the Application Directory.

With the update comes a charitable effort. A new feature called "Sell for a Cause" allows sellers to donate profits to charity.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 3, 2009, 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

MapQuest Launches On-Map Search Tool: Find Coffee On Your Route

MapQuest has enhanced its Business Locator with an On-Map Search Tool. The tool helps users find businesses along routes they plan with MapQuest. This will help the coffee-obsessed such as myself find coffee stops along their travel routes.

Below is a screenshot of a route from Raleigh, NC to Durham, NC. Notice the icon toolbar on the top right side. You can scroll for different search categories such as groceries and accommodations.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 3, 2009, 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Trulia Experiences Record Growth for Community Feature in February 2009

Real estate search site Trulia experienced record growth for its community-based feature, Trulia Voices, last month. The topics showing the most growth were:

Foreclosure
Stimulus
Financing
8000 Tax Credit
Home Inspection

Here are the stats:

Visits to Trulia Voices increased 146% year-over-year
The volume of Question and Answer activity in Trulia Voices Q&A increased 114% year-over-year
Real estate professional's answer volume increased 96% year-over-year
Consumer questions increased 181% year-over-year

"Trulia Voices has been showing steady growth since its launch in 2007 and this month was a direct indication of how much consumers are looking for information related to the real estate market," said Heather Fernandez, VP of Marketing of Trulia. "President Obama's Mortgage Relief plan has created lots of confusion and consumers are trying to determine if they qualify for some relief or tax credit. Consumers are looking for guidance and education and are relying on our pool of more than 200,000 real estate professionals for advice and insight."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 3, 2009, 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Firefox Greasemonkey Script Returns Realtime Tweets in Google Searches

Mark at MT-Hacks is quite the genius. He's created a Greasemonkey script that will return real-time Tweets in your Google searches, if you're using the Firefox browser.

If things like "Greasemonkey script" throw you off, don't worry, it's very easy. Just three steps:

1. Install Greasemonkey plugin (click here).
2. Install "Twitter Search results on Google" script (click here).
3. Search.

I searched "coffee" and the script returned the 5 most recent Tweets atop the Google results:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 3, 2009, 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Matt Cutts: Slap the Nofollow on Those Paid Posts

Google spam czar Matt Cutts is weighing in on "sponsored conversations" which is a fancy pants way of saying "paid posts." This is where bloggers are paid by companies to publish a favorable post about them.

Matt Cutts says Google will punish bloggers who pass page rank to the links included in paid posts. However, it's ok to have the paid posts - just include the "nofollow" tag on the links. Make it clear that it's a sponsored posts by labeling it as such for the world to see.

Why the big fuss? Cutts makes his point with an example post about brain surgery. If a company pays a blogger to write a favorable post about their brain surgery tool in order to rank higher, that's a serious topic to be messing with the search results about.

Of course, the problem could still exist as the company could still rank higher with legitimate SEO means, though such efforts are tougher.

For now, the nofollow on paid posts is the word from Cutts.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 3, 2009, 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Flickr Extends Video to All Members; Enables HD and 'Flickr Clock'

Last year, Flickr began allowing its Pro members to upload 90 second videos. Now, Flickr is letting all members upload videos, but there's a caveat. Members using the free version of Flickr are limited to two 90 second videos a month (which is in addition to the 100 mb monthly photo upload allowance).

Additionally, Flickr is now enabling HD video, something YouTube recently has done as well. However, only Pro members can upload HD video.

Flickr has also launched the "Flickr Clock." It's a time line of videos by users about what's going on in their world at any given moment. Here's a screenshot:

If you click on one of the long, vertical strands, it expands to show the video clip:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 3, 2009, 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Analytics Launches Skills Qualification Program

Google Analytics is launching a skills qualification program. Think Google Adwords certification, but for Google Analytics.

The program is called Google Analytics IQ - or Google Analytics Individual Qualification. Once you're certified, you can help use Google to brand yourself to clients or enhance your status to your boss if you're in-house.

"Google is an important partner to both GroupM and its clients," said Rob Norman, Director of Interactive at WPP agency GroupM Worldwide. "Google Analytics is an important resource in helping us to understand the opportunity that Google presents, and our participation demonstrates our continued commitment to gaining insight in all our key channels."

Will you take the Google Analytics IQ? Let us know in the comments. In the meantime, brush up on the latest Google Analytics updates and information with these posts from SEW:

Google Analytics Adds iPhone Advanced Segment
Bryan Eisenberg Publishes Comprehensive Google Analytics Guide
Website Optimizer Now Tracks with Google Analytics Code GA.js
Updated Google Analytics Code Fixes Rare JavaScript Message
Google Analytics Now Tracks Flash Content
Google Analytics Unveils 7 Major Updates
Google Analytics Now Available in Google Code
Google Analytics Now Shows When a Visitor Uses Chrome

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 3, 2009, 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

AOL Partners with Grocery Shopping Network for Food Niche

AOL is partnering with the Grocery Shopping Network for its Food portal. Users will be able to search UCook.com's 65,000 recipes; wine pairings; and cooking-related video content. 4.7 million visitors view AOL Food per month.

"AOL Food is excited to partner with the Grocery Shopping Network to provide consumers a solid, reliable and searchable recipe database," said Tanya Mancini, editorial director, AOL Living. "AOL Food chose GSN's UCook.com because of the quality of the recipes and video content. The variety of recipes that UCook.com provides is so vast and vibrant that we really feel our consumers will have an enjoyable experience as they find everything from home-style American cooking to international fare."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 2, 2009, 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New Engine Ready Tool Aids Landing Page Creation

Search Engine Watch has written much about the need for landing page testing, but how do you know what to test in the first place? A new tool from San Diego-based search marketing agency Engine Ready helps you design the very pages you need to test.

The tool is dubbed Conversion Critic and the great news is that it's FREE.

Engine Ready Vice President Brian Lewis (who I met at SES Chicago) walked me through a demo of the tool last week.

After you sign in, you'll see the start page. Simply type in the URL for the landing page you want to examine and then press the Start button.

The next page will bring up your page inside a frame - with a drag-enabled box that asks you questions about your page.

There are 37 questions across 4 categories, with a super-easy acronym to remember:

M - Market effectiveness
O - Offer clarity
R - Readability
E - Engagement

Once you've answered the questions, Conversion Critic returns a chart reflecting your answers. From that you can determine areas of the landing page you need to work on and see your strengths.

Lewis said most people of their users score highest on Readability. Of course, it's all subjective, so that's where you'll want the testing to come into play.

If for whatever reason you can't test, at least get another pair of eyeballs to use Conversion Critic to see if they view the page the same as you do. Perhaps the Readability is strong for you but not someone else. These are things you want to know, and Conversion Critic can help you do that.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 2, 2009, 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Live Search to Get New Brand, Features

Major hat tip to LiveSide.net for gathering the bits and pieces coming out about Live Search's new brand and features. It seems a Microsoft exec leaked a Tweet (later taken down) about playing with a pre-beta version of the new Live Search. (Live Side got a screenshot of the Tweet before it was taken down.)

Karen Young at MVP tweeted that Steve Ballmer will discuss the Live Search update this Wednesday at the MVP Summit.

Perhaps then we'll know if tests that people have been noticing - from search history to an image pager to a new font - will be included in the beta version.

In the meantime, Live Side says the possible new name for the rebrand is Kumo.com which they say means cloud or spider in Japanese.Is Kumo a good enough word to use as a verb?

One of the reasons Google's brand is so strong is because people say that they Google things. Just the other week at the Academy Awards, Adrien Brody talked about what happens if you "Google Richard Jenkins."

Would you Kumo Richard Jenkins? Maybe. It all really depends on the search results, me thinks.

But what do YOU think? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 2, 2009, 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

CitySquares Expands to 50 States

CitySquares began as a local search site for cities in the Northeast. Last year, they announced their plans for a nationwide expansion as data showed they were the fastest growing search site. They followed through, expanding to a trickle of cities and states along the way.

Now, CitySquares is announcing that they have reached all 50 states in their expansion. There are 16,000,000 businesses now listed on CitySquares.

They still have some growing to do. For example, here in North Carolina, there are listings for Charlotte but not the capital city of Raleigh. Still, congratulations are in order to CitySquares for reaching a major milestone.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on March 2, 2009, 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Guy Kawasaki and Matt McGowan to Hold SES Webcast on Friday

Guy Kawasaki and Matt McGowan will be holding an SES Webcast on Friday, March 6, at 10 a.m. (PST), 1 p.m. (EST), 6pm (GMT). They will talk about Kawasaki's new book, "Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition." They will also talk about Kawasaki's opening keynote at Search Engine Strategies New York, which is entitled, "Twitter As A Tool For Social Media."

Guy Kawasaki.jpg Kawasaki is a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures, a seed and early stage venture capital fund. He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an "online magazine rack" of popular topics on the web -- the success of which is attributed to social networking tools such as Twitter. He is considered one of the top 50 most popular bloggers worldwide, and was recently selected by Invesp.com as the #2 top marketer of 2008.

"Reality Check" is Kawasaki's all-in-one guide for starting and operating great organizations -- ones that stand the test of time and ignore any passing fads in business theory. He is also the author of eight books including "The Art of the Start", "Rules for Revolutionaries", "How to Drive Your Competition Crazy", "Selling the Dream", and "The Macintosh Way".

McGowan is Vice President and Publisher for Incisive Media's Interactive Marketing Group. He oversees all marketing activities for Search Engine Watch and ClickZ in addition to their respective trade show series, Search Engine Strategies and ClickZ Events.

During this exclusive 60 minute closed-circuit webcast, reporters and bloggers will have a to engage Kawasaki with specific strategic and business questions of your own, discuss his most recent book, and get insight into why Twitter is rapidly becoming the one social media tool you can't do without!

Go to http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/webcasts/ to register for this event. Tell them that Greg sent you. This won't help you one iota, but it will make me feel like I've accomplished something.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on March 2, 2009, 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fighting Off Microsoft Take Over Cost Yahoo $79 Million

Yahoo disclosed in a SEC filing Friday that they spent $79 million to stop the Microsoft take over, which I am sure will annoy some stockholders who now have stock priced around $13 when the Microsoft bid went as high as $33.

Interestingly Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer still is interested in the acquisition, though you would need a dance card to keep track of who is for or against the merger/buyout.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 1, 2009, 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo Announces Changes In Algorithm

Yahoo confirmed Friday that the changes noted by others had been in the works for a few days and would continue for a few more.

"We've rolled out some changes to our index with fresh web data and updates to our crawling, indexing, and ranking algorithms over the last few days. We have had two updates since last November: one in December, 2008, and another in late January this year. We expect the update will be completed very soon. Throughout this process you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages in the index," Yahoo blogger Sharad Verma announced.

Posted by Frank Watson on March 1, 2009, 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

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