Subscribe to SearchDay, our free daily e-mail summarizing the day's Search Marketing News.

April 2009

Google Analytics Pro Toolset Prefers Firefox To Chrome

Seems many tech savvy people have a preference for Firefox, even Google touts using it as opposed to Chrome when employing their recommendations for analytic pro tools of the trade.

The plugins for Firefox are its attraction, something Chrome has yet to develop.

Last year, employees at Microsoft were found to be using the Mosiac browser. Seems Firefox will be continuing to grab market share, especially with their competitors recommending them.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 30, 2009, 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Microsoft Live Blog Starts SEM Instruction

The people over at the Microsoft Live Search blog have started a series of SEM posts intended to help train people.

The SEM 101 posts are intended "to help folks who suddenly find themselves responsible for promoting their organization's website. I've seen many visitors in the forums who ask basic questions, so I know there is an audience for this line of articles. I personally know many folks in my life outside work (there is such a thing, right?) who manage websites for their businesses but know little-to-nothing of SEM."

I will be keeping an eye on how these posts develop and what level of information is shared. It is always interesting to watch the keeper of the algorithm help people improve there position in the results without tipping their hands to the factors influencing the algorithm.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 30, 2009, 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gmail Labs Keeps Search Inside Mail Interface

Google has developed a search box that will appear on the left-hand navigation to save people having to tab out and opening another search box while using Gmail.

I have had similar situations as the one described in the Gmail blog:

"I used to have a problem. People would ask me questions, over chat or email, and I'd have to leave Gmail to search Google for an answer. Then I'd have to select the answer, copy it, go back to Gmail and paste the answer into the chat window or my reply. Sometimes I'd get distracted and forget to go back to Gmail, and I'd have to go through it all again when I remembered what I'd been doing."

You can add it through the Gmail Labs settings and is very handy, as the picture shows below.

As the image shows you can then choose to drop the result you want into chat or an email.

Thanks Google this one will be very handy.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 30, 2009, 9:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

First Was By Land, Now It's By Sea - Google's New Data Centers

William Slawski, of SEO by the Sea, appropriately was the one who is reporting that Google is working on developing sea-based data centers that use hydroelectricity harnessed from floating platforms.

The idea is a clever one - very green and very smart. The water can also be used for cooling. The patent filed in 2007 and granted April 28, 2009 details "a system (that) includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units."

Such technology could give a new name to "piracy".

Posted by Frank Watson on April 30, 2009, 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yahoo! Tops March 2009 Mobile Benchmark Study by Gomez and dotMobi

Gomez and dotMobi have collaborated on mobile benchmarks, and for the mobile search category, Yahoo! snagged first place overall in March 2009.

There were five categories used to measure. Yahoo! tied for first place in two of them: discoverability and readability. Here's the five categories and how they're measured:

Discoverability -- how readily a consumer can find the mobile Web site using different URLs.
Readiness -- how well the mobile Web site renders on popular mobile devices.
Availability -- the percentage of successful transactions or the availability of a Web page.
Response time -- how long each page takes to download and the duration of an entire transaction.
Consistency -- how well the mobile Web site performs on different mobile carriers, in different geographies and time frames.

Here are the results:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 30, 2009, 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Twitter's Retention Numbers Exposes Loyalty Problem

With all the buzz about Twitter lately, Nielsen Online exposes a problem: retention and loyalty. It seems that 60% of Twitter users never return the next month to Tweet. Compared to the retention rates of MySpace and Facebook, Twitter is lagging:

They also did some fancy pants math to show the correlation between retention and Internet reach:

What do you think of the Nielsen data? Is Twitter ultimately in trouble? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 30, 2009, 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Google Enables Public Data Search

If you're a numbers, geography or news junkie, then you'll love a new feature released by Google to its main search engine. It enables searches for public data. Type in population followed by a county and you'll get data for that. Type in unemployment rate followed by a location and, again, you'll get data for that. Those data types are available for almost any U.S state or county. Google hopes to make more public data available for such easy searching in the future.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 30, 2009, 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft to Bring Tellme to Windows Mobile Phones

Microsoft is bringing Tellme, a voice service it acquired a couple years ago, to Windows Mobile phones. Tellme will enable voice search as well as voice commands for the phones it's used on.

Here are examples of how you'll be able to use Tellme:

Send a text by saying "text" to open a text box, then speak the text message and say "send" to send it to anyone in their contact list
Initiate a call simply by saying "call" and then the name of anyone in their contact list
Search the Web with Microsoft Live Search by speaking your request, such as "weather in San Francisco, California," "pizza in Kansas City," "movies" or "Mother's Day gift ideas"

"Because it's so intuitive, we believe there is a real opportunity for voice to materialize as the leading user interface for the phone," said Dariusz Packzuski, senior director of consumer services at Tellme. "By bringing voice access to calling, texting and searching, together we reduce 'menu surfing' on phones and make the benefits of voice more tangible for everyday needs."

Microsoft is hoping this is part of the equation to ultimately beat the iPhone. Part of their push with Tellme is to point out that pushing one button and speaking is easier than typing 20 keystrokes.

What do you think of Tellme being rolled out to Windows Mobile phones?

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 30, 2009, 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jeff Levick Named Head of AOL Global Advertising and Strategy

In a press release this morning, AOL announced that Jeff Levick will join the company as President, Global Advertising and Strategy.

Platform A.jpg In this new and expanded role, Levick will be responsible for Platform-A, AOL's advertising business, as well as developing global revenue strategies. Levick comes to AOL from Google, where he was most recently VP of Industry Development and Marketing, The Americas. He will report directly to AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong.

As a result of this change, Greg Coleman will be leaving Platform-A, where he has served as President since early February 2009.

Levick will officially join AOL in the coming weeks. At Google, he was responsible for business marketing activities for the Americas as well as sales development and strategy for all of the vertical industries covered by Google's Americas sales organization. He joined Google in 2001 and has held various executive management positions in the company's advertising sales organization in both North America and Europe.

Jeff Levick SES Advisory Board.jpg Prior to joining Google, Levick served as a corporate attorney with a specialty in mergers and acquisitions at the international law firm of Katten Muchin Rosenman, and held roles at various online ventures in Chicago. He currently serves on the board of directors of Helium.com, the advisory board of the College of Communications at DePaul University, and as a member of the SES advisory board.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 30, 2009, 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Clay Shirky, Author of "Here Comes Everybody", to Keynote at SES San Jose

Okay, I understand that it's hard to think beyond the current quarter. But, looking ahead to August could save you up to $600. Let me explain.

Search Engine Strategies San Jose will be held August 11-14, 2009. It is expected to attract approximately 6,000 marketing executives, managers, professionals, specialists and consultants this year.

Now in its 11th year, SES San Jose 2009 is organized and programmed by the SES Advisory Board and Search Engine Watch. The event, which is the largest search engine marketing conference and expo on the West Coast, will be packed with more than 70 sessions, multiple keynotes and Orion panels, over 150 exhibitors, networking events, parties and more.

And, if you register through May 8, you can save up to $600 with the early bird rate.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Now, it has just been announced that Clay Shirky, author of "Here Comes Everybody," will be one of the keynote speakers at SES San Jose.

Clay Shirky.jpeg Shirky is a writer, educator, and consultant on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He is an adjunct professor at New York University (NYU) in their graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program, where he teaches courses on the interrelationships of social and technological networks, particularly how they shape culture and vice-versa. He consults to a variety of organizations on network technologies, and is an acknowledged expert on collaboration tools, social networks, peer-to-peer sharing, collaborative filtering, and Open Source development.

Shirky has spoken and written extensively on the Internet since 1996, with regular columns in Business 2.0, FEED, OpenP2P.com and his own shirky.com blogsite. He has appeared in The New York Times, Time, The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and others. In his new book, "Here Comes Everybody", he explores how organizations and industries are being upended by open networks, collaboration, and user appropriation of content production and dissemination.

In a press release issued this morning, Matt McGowan, Vice President and Publisher for Incisive Media's Interactive Marketing Group, which includes Search Engine Strategies, Search Engine Watch and the ClickZ Network, said, "More than 60 percent of the content at SES San Jose 2009 will be focused on topics that search engine marketing (SEM), pay per click (PPC) advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO) professionals, specialists and consultants need to know. That's what makes SES San Jose a must-attend event year after year."

McGowan added, "As more and more businesses move ever greater amounts of their traditional marketing budgets into search engine marketing, we've also seen growing interest from marketing executives and managers in sessions that tackle a broader set of business issues. That's why we're delighted to have Clay Shirky as a keynote speaker at our conference in San Jose, which is home to the largest concentration of successful internet and high-tech companies in the world."

So, if you plan to attend the largest search engine marketing conference and expo on the West Coast, then register through May 8. If you do, you can save up to $600 with the early bird rate.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 30, 2009, 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another DOJ Antitrust Investigation for Google, This Time for Book Search Settlement

Months after Google pulled out of a search ad deal with Yahoo! due to a Department of Justice antitrust investigation, the search engine is facing a similar battle - this time with its Book Search settlement.

You may remember that Google reached an agreement with Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) last October. The deal would resolve a long-standing class-action lawsuit brought by the group. A court still needs to approve the deal, and a hearing is scheduled for October 7, 2009 (rescheduled from June 11).

Critics fear that the agreement would give Google an exclusive license to profit from millions of books, including orphan books where the authors cannot be contacted or whose rights are unknown.

However, on Google's site set up to address questions and inquiries regarding the settlement (Googlebooksettlement.com), Google says its rights are non-exclusive.

An inquiry doesn't mean that the DOJ will nix the settlement. But the DOJ does share some of the aforementioned concerns of critics, despite Google's assurance that the deal is non-exclusive.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 29, 2009, 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hulu Surpasses Yahoo Sites in Online Video Race for March 2009

Looks like the momentum created by an ad campaign that began during the Superbowl continues to bring a boost to Hulu. The online video joint effort by NBC and Fox landed in the top 3 video sites in March 2009, something comScore says is a first. Hulu pushed Yahoo! sites to position number 4. Google, with its ownership of YouTube, and Fox Interactive, with its ownership of MySpace, still dominated the top two spots respectively:

More juicy data nuggets from the March 2009 online video space include:

77.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
The average online video viewer watched 327 minutes of video, or nearly 5.5 hours.
99.7 million viewers watched 5.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (59.1 videos per viewer).
47.4 million viewers watched 349 million videos on MySpace.com (7.4 videos per viewer).
Hulu accounted for 2.6 percent of videos viewed, but 4.9 percent of all minutes spent watching online video.
The duration of the average online video was 3.4 minutes.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 29, 2009, 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Zillow Release iPhone Real Estate Search App

Zillow has released an iPhone app for real estate searching on-the-go. All of the same data available on Zillow is available on the app. Zillow uses Microsoft virtual earth for its mapping.

"Researching homes and house-hunting is inherently a mobile experience," said Rich Barton, Zillow co-founder and CEO. "The GPS-enabled iPhone untethers our Zillow users from their computers and puts the power of our database of 88 million homes in their hands when they need it most - while they are looking at homes."

Here are screenshots of the app:

(Listing for my dream house here in Raleigh.)

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 29, 2009, 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft Offers Vine, Social Media For Important Personal Info

Microsoft announced the beta launch of Vine - a social media platform for personal information sharing. As the site states: "The Microsoft Vine Beta connects you to the people and places you care about most, when it matters."

While it may be in beta as an emergency Twitter like app, the potential for this could eventually become a challenge to Facebook as well as Twitter. It has the potential to set up, through its interface, as a tracking and mapping networking tool that combines elements of both of those programs.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 29, 2009, 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

AOL Ad Revenues Drop 20% in Q1 2009

Time Warner, parent company of AOL, has reported their first quarter earnings for 2009 and the news isn't great for AOL. Ad revenues have dropped 20% or $109 million. The losses largely contributed to the 7% decline parent company Time Warner experienced overall.

The losses added to Time Warner's desire to rid itself of AOL.

"With our separation of Time Warner Cable, Time Warner has become a more content-focused company. We're also working to determine the right ownership structure for AOL," said Time Warner Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes. "With our powerful brands, industry-leading scale, track record of innovation, heightened focus on efficiency and strong balance sheet, I'm confident that we'll continue to make progress toward our key long-term goals - to be the world's leading content company and improve returns to our stockholders."

After shopping itself to potential buyers, Time Warner appears to be posed to spin off the struggling internet company. Time Warner has notified Google of its intent to purchase their 5% stock in AOL.

AOL recently hired Tim Armstrong, former Google Senior Vice President, as CEO.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 29, 2009, 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo Fires Them On The Road, Hundreds Get Axe Today

Looks like no one can hide from the Yahoo axe today. Last week it was going to be 700, today the number is 600 - but people are being aggressively laid off - apparently even employees on the road are getting notification of termination, according to Silicon Alley Insider.

Morale must be low over at Yahoo right now, especially after CEO Carol Bartz stated, ""You have three people telling project engineers what to do, and nobody's fucking doing anything," during an analyst earnings call last week, CNN Money reported.

Stock prices have risen about 4% today - similar to the reaction to the layoff announcement last week. Sad if layoff notifications are the only time the stock gets spikes.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 29, 2009, 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

IAC Acquires Restaurant Recommendation Guide Urbanspoon

IAC, parent company of Ask.com, has acquired Urbanspoon. The restaurant recommendation is a website as well as one of the more popular iPhone apps. Urbanspoon will remain an independent brand, but its content will be integrated with other IAC properties such as Citysearch and InsiderPages.

"With a dedicated and comprehensive focus on restaurants, Urbanspoon is a pioneer in the online and mobile space with a truly unique, innovative and consumer-friendly product," said Jay Herratti, CEO of Citysearch. "Aggregating content from across the web and blending it with distinctive features including a polling system to rank restaurants, Urbanspoon is expanding the realm of what's possible for consumers when it comes to finding local content on the web."

You may remember Urbanspoon from some of the earlier iPhone commercials demonstrating apps once the App Store was open. It looks like a slot machine, except you get to choose which items you want (though you can shake for a random recommendation.)

"With millions of downloads of their iPhone app, Urbanspoon has demonstrated that they can successfully distill mash-up web content and deliver it through mobile for foodies and local restaurant seekers alike," said Dinesh Moorjani, SVP of Mobile for IAC.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 29, 2009, 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Starts Small Business Network to Influence Government

Google has started an initiative called the "Small Business Network" which is designed to influence legislation regarding business. One of the first actions is to attempt to have a say on the $7 billion from the recent stimulus bill that is set aside for broadband.

Another important issue for the network will be promoting an open internet. This is something Google has been promoting for awhile, with its involvement in last year's spectrum auction, their support for freeing up white space tv spectrum, and their participation in the Internet for Everyone Initiative.

Of course, Google already has an ear with the President. Google CEO Eric Schmidt was recently appointed to President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 29, 2009, 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Updates AdSense Program Policies Page

Google has made some clarifications to its AdSense Program Policies. Straight from the horses mouth (aka the Inside AdSense blog), here they are:

Google brand violations: This policy has always existed in our Terms and Conditions, but we've now brought it directly to the 'Ad Placement' section of the program policies page so that it's easier to find. According to this policy, we don't allow ads or search boxes to be placed on pages which misuse Google logos, trademarks, or other brand features in the page content or URL, and which could mislead users into thinking the page is associated with Google.

Deceptive implementations: We've clarified this policy a bit in the 'Encouraging Clicks' section of the program policies - ads may not be formatted in a way that makes them indistinguishable from other content on the page where they appear.

Ad placement in emails and email programs: This updated policy clarifies that Google ads , search boxes, and search results may not be placed in emails, as well as alongside emails.

Other Google products' policies: With this new policy, publishers aren't permitted to place ads, search boxes, or search results on, within, or alongside other Google products in a way that violates the policies of that other product or service. For instance, this would include placing ads on sites which allow users to download YouTube videos, which isn't permitted by the YouTube Terms of Service.

What do you think of the changes? Let us know in the comments section below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 29, 2009, 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Eric Schmidt and Craig Mundie Named to President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology

Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer have been named to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The council is comprised of scientists and engineers who will advise President and Vice President on policy involving science, technology, and innovation.

"This council represents leaders from many scientific disciplines who will bring a diversity of experience and views," said President Obama. "I will charge PCAST with advising me about national strategies to nurture and sustain a culture of scientific innovation."

Schmidt and Mundie join the following members named to PCAST:

John Holdren, serving as co-chair of PCAST, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy
Eric Lander, serving as a co-chair of PCAST, Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Professor of Biology at MIT, Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School and member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
Harold Varmus, serving as co-chair of PCAST, President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Rosina Bierbaum, Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan
Christine Cassel, President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine
Christopher Chyba, Professor of Astrophysical Sciences and International Affairs at Princeton University and a member of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences
S. James Gates Jr., John S. Toll Professor of Physics and Director of the Center for String and Particle Theory at the University of Maryland
Shirley Ann Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and former Chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (1995-1999)
Richard Levin, President of Yale University
Chad Mirkin, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry, and Medicine at Northwestern University, and Director of Northwestern's International Institute of Nanotechnology
Mario Molina, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego and the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, as well as Director of the Mario Molina Center for Energy and Environment in Mexico City
Ernest J. Moniz, Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, Director of the Energy Initiative, and Director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment at MIT
William Press, Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin
Maxine Savitz, vice-president of the National Academy of Engineering, retired general manager of Technology Partnerships at Honeywell, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Conservation in the US Department of Energy
Barbara Schaal is Professor of Biology at Washington University in St Louis and Vice President of the National Academy of Sciences
Daniel Schrag, Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University and Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
David E. Shaw, chief scientist of D. E. Shaw Research, LLC, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves on the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies
Ahmed Zewail, Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Caltech and Director of the Physical Biology Center

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 28, 2009, 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Launches New Information Site for Advertisers

"Google for Advertisers" is a brand new site from the search engine giant, and as the title suggests, it's all about information for advertisers. Specifically, there are four primary things advertisers can do and learn on the site, per the Inside AdWords blog:

Read up on our various media platforms. Get descriptions of Google's ad platforms and all of the supporting tools.

Take a ride on 'The Marketing Cycle.' Learn how Google's solutions can be applied across the stages of an advertising campaign, including strategy, creative, media deployment, measurement and optimization.

Stick it to a marketing objective. Google created a fictional marketing example (Pet Stick) to demonstrate how their tools work to solve specific goals.

Build your personal 'toolkit.' When browsing the site, save Google tools that interest you by adding them to an online toolkit. It makes it easy to go back to them and share them with your colleagues.

What do you think about the new Google for Advertisers? Leave a comment below and let us know.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 28, 2009, 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Live Search Adds Traffic Service to 411 Offerings

Live Search launched phone-based search offerings in October of 2007. Since then, with updates, the service offers business search, driving directions, sports, stock quotes, weather, movie times, gas prices, and travel information.

Now they're adding another topic to the list: Traffic. To access the service, dial 1-800-CALL-411 and ask for Traffic. Users can save their start and end points to access quick traffic info in the future by saying, for example, "Home to Work."

The information provided includes traffic incidents, slowdowns and an estimated drive time. The Traffic 411 service is powered by INRIX

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 28, 2009, 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Emanuel Rosen, Author of "The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited", to Give Keynote at SES Toronto

I'm looking forward to interviewing Emanuel Rosen, the author of "The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited", who will give a keynote presentation at SES Toronto 2009. I also look forward to reading his book.

Emanuel Rosen.jpg Rosen is the author of the national bestseller "The Anatomy of Buzz" (Doubleday, 2000) and "The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited" (Doubleday, 2009) has more good stories.

Prior to writing these books, he was VP Marketing at Niles Software, where he was responsible for launching and marketing the company's flagship product EndNote, which spread to a large extent by word of mouth. It was during this time that he became interested in buzz and especially in how it can be accelerated.

Rosen started his career as a copywriter in Israel. For his work in advertising, he won the Bronze Lion from the Cannes International Advertising Festival, as well as several national awards including two gold medals. He holds an MBA from the University of San Francisco and lives in Menlo Park, California. The Anatomy of Buzz "has managed to generate quite a bit of buzz itself" as BusinessWeek Online noted. The book hit The Wall Street Journal's business best-seller list and is now available in 12 languages.

This year, SES Toronto 2009 will be held at the Sheraton Centre Toronto June 8-10, 2009. The largest search engine marketing conference in Canada is organized and programmed in cooperation with the SES Advisory Board, Search Engine Watch and Andrew Goodman, the founder and president of Toronto-based Page Zero Media.

According to Goodman, "This year, SES Toronto is being held at the Sheraton Centre on Queen Street West. As always it promises to be the digital marketing event of the year in Canada. With the help of the Incisive Media team, great speakers, and sponsors, we're teeing up another great program to help companies forge through these choppy economic waters with the ultimate in targeted, accountable marketing. And as always, the networking, rooftop tanning, and cultural opportunities are just icing on the cake."

For more information about SES Toronto 2009, go to rates and registration details. Register through May 22 to save $150 CAD with the advance rate. To follow news about SES Toronto 2009 on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/SES_Toronto.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 28, 2009, 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Android 1.5 SDK Officially Released

A couple of weeks ago, Google let developers get an early-look release of the new Android 1.5 SDK in order to start prepping their apps for the updated platform. Today, Android 1.5 is officially released.

Click here to see the release notes.

The Android team also said that HTC, the manufacturer of the Android powered G1, has made new system images available to upgrade dev phones to Android 1.5.

Hmm, perhaps some of you developers out there will be creating a new Android app with Facebook's new Open Stream API?

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 27, 2009, 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook Launches Open Stream API

In the ongoing chess match for social media dominance, Facebook just made a move that is akin to saying "Check." Today, they launched Facebook Open Stream API.

This means developers can create apps based on the live feeds that users see when they log into Facebook. Users, however, can maintain the privacy controls that they want.

If you're familiar with the many desktop and mobile clients for Twitter, then you know what's coming - desktop and mobile apps for Facebook.

In fact, many are saying Facebook did this to compete directly with Twitter. What say you, oh dear SEW readers? Leave thy comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 27, 2009, 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Adobe Exec Heads to Yahoo!

Former Adobe exec Bryan Lamkin has been tapped by Yahoo! to become SVP of Applications Products, according to Kara Swisher. Lamkin replaces Scott Dietzen, who came to Yahoo! via the Zimbra acquisition in 2007. Dietzen is being promoted to VP.

Lamkin spent 14 years at Adobe leading product strategy, marketing and product development for products such as Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator. He then became executive-in-residence at two venture capitalist firms: New Enterprise Associates and Sutter Hill Ventures.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 27, 2009, 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Facebook Exec Tapped as MySpace CEO

After much speculation, it was finally confirmed that News Corp has hired Owen Van Netta, former chief revenue officer and vp of operations at Facebook, as the new CEO of MySpace. He will replace Chris Wolfe, whose resignation was announced Wednesday.

Van Netta spent less than a year as CEO at Playlist after Facebook. Previously, he was VP of worldwide business and corporate development at Amazon.com.

Van Netta's hiring comes almost a month after former AOL exec Jonathan Miller was tapped to head up News Corp's digital division.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 24, 2009, 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Launches Toolbar Labs; My Location is First Feature

Google has given Toolbar a new experimental playground called Toolbar Labs, which is akin to Google Labs and GMail Labs. Essentially, when a Google product gets "Labs," it means users can select from among features instead of having them automatically included in an update.

With the launch of Toolbar Labs comes the first feature. "My Location" is now available via Toolbar Labs for users to add to their Toolbars.

If you're not familiar, "My Location" uses nearby wifi access points to find your location. Using that information, they can provide local results for a search.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 24, 2009, 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Preliminary Results in Facebook Governance Vote Favor New Documents

The Facebook governance vote concluded yesterday. The social network says that while the numbers need to be verified by an independent auditor, 74% are in favor of the new documents over the old Terms of Service. 600,000 members participated in the vote.

The new documents include "Facebook Principles," which define the rights of members, and a "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities," which replaces the old Terms of Service.

Once the vote is confirmed, the new policies will take effect. Any future changes to the documents will be subject to public notice, comment and voting.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 24, 2009, 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Police Take Out Web Ad for Leads in Craigslist Killer Case

Police in Boston are looking for more clues in the Craigslist killer case. So, they've taken out an ad on Craigslist. They're hoping to find people who were attacked or robbed at a hotel in the Boston area after placing an ad on the popular classifieds site.

Currently, authorities have arrested 23 year old medical student Philip Markoff, who has plead not guilty. He's charged of murdering Julissa Brisman, 26 at Boston Marriott Copley Place hotel. He's also accused of robbing another woman at a Boston hotel 4 days prior to the murder. Both took place in April.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 24, 2009, 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Online Advertising Takes a Dive in Microsoft Third Quarter Earnings

Microsoft released their quarterly earnings today, reporting a loss for the company - the first time in 23 years. Online advertising contributed to the losses, although the division is the smallest of all Microsoft's big five divisions (the other four being Client, Business, Server and Tools, and Entertainment/Devices).

The Online Services Division more than doubled their operating income, but that did not translate into revenues. The division saw $721 million in revenues for their third quarter of 2009, compared to $843 million in the third quarter of 2008. That's a 14.5% decline.

Microsoft says lower display advertising prices are the reason for declining online advertising revenue. Page views and search queries are growing, however, giving a silver lining to the news. Also, remember that Microsoft has done some pretty hefty hiring in the search department, including hiring quite a few tech execs from Yahoo! With many of these hirings occurring in the past two quarters, it may not have been enough time to see what's to come from any new initiatives that are in the works.

Overall, Microsoft saw $13.65 billion in revenues in Q3 2009 compared to $14.45 billion in Q3 2008, a 6.1% decrease.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 23, 2009, 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Releases Product Search for iPhone and Android

Ever since Smokey Robinson reminded us that our mamas told us to shop around, finding the best bargain has been an American pastime. That pastime has gotten easier in recent years with fancy mobile phones giving us access to product information such as price and reviews at our ever-instant fingertips.

Now, Google is trying to be part of the on-the-go purchase decision process. They've made product search available to Google.com searchers on the iPhone and Android.

So, let's say you're out there shopping for camping tents for the upcoming summer. You'll a link sandwiched between paid results and the universal shopping results included at the top of the organic results:

Clicking on that link will take you to the product search page:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 23, 2009, 7:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Q&A with Rob Swick of Atlantic Canada Internet Marketing Association

SES Toronto 2009 is coming up June 8-10 and one of the event's association sponsors is the Atlantic Canada Internet Marketing Association (ACIMA).

ACIMA is an industry association dedicated to unifying the Internet Marketing community in the Atlantic Provinces (Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland), as well as to promoting and sharing Internet marketing knowledge and best practices. The association mandate is comprised of Education and Training, Networking, Information Sharing, Representation and Profile Raising.

Rob Swick.jpg To learn a little more about ACIMA, I interviewed the association's President, Rob Swick. As founding President of ACIMA, Swick coordinates the overall association activities. He also leads the charge for the association's promotion and growth.

Jarboe: ACIMA is a relatively new trade association, dedicated to unifying the Internet marketing community in the Atlantic Provinces (Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland) and to promoting best practices in this growing field. What are Canadians in this region most excited about in this Web 2.0 world? Any particular tools or developments that stand out?

Swick: Not on thing in particular. But Atlantic Canadians are famous talkers. It's a very social culture, so Web 2.0 in general has a high appeal. One thing I was surprised to see that even government seems to be shifting to Web 2.0 press releases. Usually government would be slow to adopt things like that but there's a real sense of understanding of this particular sea change.

Jarboe: How would you characterize Canadian search habits or queries? Or for that matter, in the Atlantic Provinces? Do search trends hover more heavily around generic keywords?

Swick: It's amazing how persistent broad search queries are, but the numbers show that search tail is producing better visitors, lower bounce rates, more time on the site, so we target those and we target more broadly and with more depth. I imagine it's the same all around.

Jarboe: Canada's population is about 1/10th of that of the United States. How underdeveloped is e-commerce in Canada and where do you see ACIMA's role in expanding it?

Swick: Until a few years ago this was a real issue. People still talked about whether ecommerce was safe and reports kept showing that the smaller percentage of Canadians who DID want to shop online couldn't find Canadian etailers to shop from. Things have changed a lot - and quickly. I think Canadians gravitated first to things like online banking and paying bills online. Maybe it's the cold! Canadians love doing things from the comfort of their homes. And now that they've made the leap numbers for even big purchase items are showing that Canadians are catching up quickly and embracing the convenience and value you can get through ecommerce. Kijiji apparently is growing more rapidly here, and especially in Atlantic Canada, than in the US.

Jarboe: How important is the .CA domain when creating a Canadian website? Is .COM considered an affront?

Swick: Both are fine in Canada. They're the most common extensions. Dot-ca is what a lot of companies have because it allows Canadian companies to actually get their name as a domain. Dotcom is just as acceptable if you happen to have it. Either - or. We're practical people. I don't think anyone sees dotcom as 'American'. It's just 'Internet'. You even see some provincial extensions (for Nova Scotia for example it's domain.ns.ca) though most people find those cumbersome and irritating. They're more common in Quebec which has a more nationalistic leaning. You've probably heard a little about that - remember the time on the Simpson's that Homer was reading the newspaper and said "hmmm...they're holding a referendum in Canada". Okay, probably not.

Jarboe: Social media tools are all the buzz right now. Twitter, in particular, is receiving lots of attention. What's your take on Twitter? Do you see the Internet marketing community in the Atlantic Provinces using it effectively to market their business?

Swick: I think it's still mostly for early adopters, though they're a passionate, active, and involved group and I think it's the actual personalities - I could name a handful of names - that are building networks of Tweeting friends and followers and they're taking the message into their companies that this is a cool and efficient way to get the word around on what's happening now. As a mainstream tool... Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, each one I think currently has a thin slice of influence. At our AIM conference we have three different talks on Social Media. The interest is there. The adoption.... just starting.

Jarboe: What do you look forward to most in attending SES Toronto? Any particular panels or sessions?

Swick: I always enjoy meeting and seeing the speakers I haven't seen before. I'm also more interested in optimizing for different countries and languages so will be looking forward to hearing and talking about that. I first worked in Montreal so have done a lot of optimizing for French engines - but now many of our projects are truly global so there's a lot to learn about specific engines in other countries, usage and behavioural patterns. Lots and lots to learn - it's a big globe.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 23, 2009, 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Profiles Offer Some Control and Visibility for Name-Based Results

Google has launched a new feature to allow users to gain some visibility in searches conducted on their name. It's called Google Profiles is similar to many social network profiles. You can add as much or as little information as you wish.

At the bottom of name-based searches in the US, links to these public profiles will be shown. The links feature a name, job title and location, which will hopefully help searchers find the person they're looking for.

As you can see, also included in those social profile listings are links to the same name-based searches on social networks including MySpace, Facebook, Classmates, and LinkedIn.

To set up your Google profile, click here.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 22, 2009, 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Google Analytics Launches API

It's officially called the Google Analytics Data Export API, and as you might expect, it's being released in beta. But expect all sorts of nifty things to come of it.

Google highlighted some of the uses on the Analytics blog:

Android application to check Analytics from a phone

Desktop application

Email integration

PowerPoint integration

Mashup of AdWords, Analytics, and Salesforce

Get started with the Google Analytics API over at Google Code.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 22, 2009, 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

CitySquares Allows Merchants to Opt-Out of Reviews (For a Fee)

CitySquares is allowing merchants to opt-out of being subject to reviews on their site. The catch? You'll need to pony up $5.99 a month to opt-out.

It's a catch-22 scenario. Opt-out of reviews and kill the negative reviews or stick it out and hope for some good ones. If you opt-out, some consumers may wonder if you have something to hide.

Plus, if you're a small business, you better hope this idea doesn't catch on. Can you imagine having to shell out $6 a month to a bunch of different sites? It adds up.

Still, it could be worth it if you find that you're losing hundreds or thousands once a nasty review gets up there. And of course, reviews aren't necessarily honest. They could be fake ones set up by the competition.

CitySquares' plan isn't perfect, but it does show the continued need for innovation in the ratings/reviews space.

Would you pay to opt-out of reviews? Let us know in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 22, 2009, 4:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SES Brings SEM, PPC and SEO Training Workshops to Atlanta

On May 5, 2009, Search Engine Strategies (SES) will hold four search engine marketing (SEM) training workshops at the Omni Hotel CNN Center in Atlanta, GA. The hands-on workshops cover a range of topics, including search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising.

Have you ever wondered why the search engine marketing industry uses the three-letter acronym (TLA) so frequently? Were we trying to squeeze too much information into the 25-character limit for a Google AdWords headline or secretly preparing for Twitter's more generous 140-character limit?

Anyway, attendees can choose one workshop or participate in one workshop in the morning and another in the afternoon. The fee for two workshops is $1,345, and the fee for one workshop is $745. For complete workshop details and registration information, visit SEM Training Atlanta.

There are two morning workshops, which are being held from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Shari Thurow.jpg Using the conditions outlined by the popular search engines, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop demonstrates how to build a user-friendly, search-friendly and persuasive website that converts visitors into buyers. The instructor is Shari Thurow, founder and SEO director of Omni Marketing Interactive. Thurow is a pioneer in the area of search-engine friendly website design and has a 100% success rate for achieving top search engine rankings for her clients.

Link Building Tactics, Tools & Techniques demonstrates how to better understand and manage link building campaigns by providing information about proven, practical and creative link marketing campaigns. The instructor is Debra Mastaler, president of Alliance-Link. Mastaler is a speaker at industry events and a guest columnist for industry publications, who offers a common sense approach to link building by combining traditional sales and promotional strategies with effective online search engine marketing tactics.

Everyone can always use link building tips and Mastaler recently spoke to WebProNews Reporter Abby Prince at Small Business Marketing Unleashed in Texas. Mastaler explained that one should begin their link building campaign by establishing their credibility. She also discussed tools that she recommends using.

More WebProNews Videos

Small Business Marketing Unleashed: Debra Mastaler

There are two afternoon workshops, which are being held from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Advanced Keyword Research explores the tools available for identifying, researching and zeroing in on the right keywords for an SEO or PPC campaign via theory and real world examples. The instructor is Ron Jones, an Internet marketing consultant, trainer and owner of Symetri Internet Marketing. Jones provides strategic consulting and Internet marketing solutions to a variety of companies.

Jones was interviewed recently by John Mulligan of SEO-PR about the case study Jones presented at SES San Jose and how to improve your quality score.

Symetri case study on improving quality score

Finally, How to Effectively Use Social Media for Search Marketing Campaigns reviews the entire realm of social media environments and how to use them effectively as part of a holistic marketing campaign. The instructor is Liana "Li" Evans, the director of Internet marketing at Key Relevance. Evans is well-versed in all avenues of search marketing, with a particular focus on natural search optimization, vertical search, social media and word-of-mouth marketing.

I interviewed Evans about her social media panel at SES Toronto 2008. In her session, she talked about winning social media strategies from companies such as Dell, Houlihan's, and Loblaw's. Loblaw's, for example, actively participated in social media conversations not only by creating a YouTube channel to promote its product, but by taking to heart user feedback gathered from that channel and changing their product to reflect the needs expressed by their consumers.

Li Evans on Social Media Success and BBQ Sauce

For complete SES training workshop details and registration information, visit http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/training/atlanta/

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 22, 2009, 7:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

The Butterfly Effect: King Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey Enhance the Twitter Hockey Stick

Hitwise has released some of the earlier numbers on last week's Twitter extravaganza. In case you were in a cave or hijacked by pirates, last week Ashton Kutcher "competed" against CNN to see who could be the first one to get 1 million followers. Ashton won, Oprah crowned him King of Twitter and featured the hot social network on her show.

Well, you know what that means. I mean, if Oprah mentions something, the masses run out to buy it or try it. Here's Hitwise's chart showing the initial effect:

It remains to be seen if this is a spike or a long-term increase in traffic. Hopefully, for all you social media marketers out there, it's the latter.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 21, 2009, 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yahoo!'s Revenues (Including Search-Based) Decline in Q1 2009; Layoffs Planned

Yahoo! today announced first quarter 2009 results that were not so bright. First of all, their revenues have declined 13% over the first quarter of 2008 to $1.58 billion. Search was dragged down with the overall decline, with a 3% decrease. Display advertising saw a 13% drop. In the first quarter of 2009, search had been a bright spot in otherwise dim earnings.

As a result, Yahoo! plans to cut 5% of its workforce over the coming two weeks.

"Yahoo! is not immune to the ongoing economic downturn, but careful cost management
in the first quarter allowed our operating cash flow to come in near the high end of our
outlook range," said Yahoo! chief executive officer Carol Bartz. "While we experienced
pressure in both display and search advertising in the first quarter, we believe Yahoo!
remains one of the most compelling advertising buys on the Internet. With our leading
audience properties, substantial reach and innovative advertising solutions, we are
confident Yahoo! will be well positioned when online brand advertising resumes its
growth."

AdGooroo recently released data showing that first page advertisers on Yahoo! grew by 10% in the first quarter, but apparently that wasn't enough to stop the decline.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 21, 2009, 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ABCSearch Acquires and Rebrands as Advertise.com

Privately-held paid search company ABCSearch, Internext Media Corp. company, has acquired Advertise.com. They will rebrand under the Advertise.com name, which will serve a larger online advertising solution including PPC, contextual advertising, and display ads.

This is, of course, not to be confused with AOL-owned Advertising.com (which has been rebranded as Platform-A).

"I believe that online advertising needs a new approach," said Daniel Yomtobian, founder and CEO of Advertise.com. According to Yomtobian, advertisers and publishers have so many choices--some work, while others definitely do not. "The current model does not provide advertisers enough ROI. We launched Advertise.com to provide advertisers and publishers a new value proposition--effective, affordable, and easy-to-use advertising campaigns all under one roof. We are committed to our motto: 'online marketing made easy'."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 21, 2009, 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursdays Become "Must Browse While Watching TV" Nights

Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI) has released data showing the level of multitasking taking place when people watch television - specifically how much they are watching TV and surfing the 'net at the same time.

During weeknight television viewing (Sunday-Thursday)...

Viewers spent an average of 9.3 percent of primetime viewing minutes also online

The breakdown between cable and broadcast television was 8.2 percent and 11.0 percent, respectively

Time spent watching broadcast television while surfing the Web more than doubles as the week progresses

5.8% of primetime media minutes are also spent concurrently on the web on Monday, the low for the week, while Thursday is the highets at 15.9%

"This trend of going online while watching primetime television represents a significant opportunity for advertisers who want to target viewers with a message to visit content online," said Matt Reid, director of strategic initiatives for Integrated Media Measurement Inc. "The landscape is moving at a steady pace from multiplatform advertising to simultaneous multiplatform advertising."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 21, 2009, 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Adds Like-Image Search and News Timeline to Labs

Google employees get 20% of their time to work on non-assigned projects. Sometimes when they do, the result is some pretty cool stuff that Google adds to its products.

This time, Google has announced that two 20% projects have made their way into Google Labs (aka Google's experimental playground). The two projects are "Similar Images" and "Google News Timeline."

Last week, we brought you word that Google News had introduced a "Timeline of Articles." This new timeline that's launching in Labs is different.

The Labs timeline looks like a calendar with a bunch of news stories. An on-site scrollbar helps users find more stories for a given day:

Meanwhile, Similar Images does pretty much what the name implies. Start off by searching for an image. In this case, I typed in the name of one of my favorite shows on TV, Chuck (starring Zachary Levi, don't cancel it, NBC, don't!):

In the results, I look for an image I'm interested in and click the blue link underneath that says "Similar Images"

As you can see, the results are really good!

You may remember that recently the official Google Image search recently added a color filter. It works quite good as well. It's nice to see these advances in image search from the Google team.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 21, 2009, 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

AutoTrader.com Launches Ad Network to Reach In-Market Buyers

AutoTrader.com is announcing the launch of AutoTrader Acccess, a new online advertising network designed to help advertisers reach in-market buyers. AutoTrader.com sees 15 million unique visitors a year. Their new Acces network can target buers by demographic, behavioral, and geographic characteristics. Access will aggregate a portfolio of sites which gives advertisers the ability to make one media buy across multiple publishers.

"As one of the top sites for in-market car buyers, AutoTrader.com's visitors -- who spend an average of 30 minutes a month on our site -- are a highly engaged, attractive audience for companies trying to influence car purchase decisions," said Anne Steinhauer, AutoTrader.com vice president of national accounts. "By creating this network, AutoTrader.com can efficiently deliver our own highly engaged audience and, through the network, the highly targeted audiences that our advertisers also want to reach."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 20, 2009, 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Jeeves Makes a Comeback in the UK

Ask.com is bringing back Jeeves, the friendly butler mascot that started it all off in 1997. Not only is the icon back, but Ask is returning to its brand Ask Jeeves in the UK as well.

Jeeves also got a makeover:

Remember the old Jeeves?

"We know from increased retention levels, that our users prefer the improved site. And, in times like these we know our users are looking for answers for practical everyday needs like saving money and how to feed a family on a budget," Cesar Mascaraque, managing director of Ask Jeeves Europe. "We also know from research that they love Jeeves and strongly associate him with providing answers. Jeeves brings warmth and humanity to the search experience, and thanks to the enhancements we have made to our site, he is even better at providing answers than ever before so bringing him back is a perfect fit."

Ask.com originally retired Jeeves in February 2006.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 20, 2009, 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

'Family Guy' Tops Internal Search List for Hulu

Hitwise has compiled a list of the top internal searches at Hulu.com. The following list is the top 10 searches during the week of March 21, 2009:

family guy
transformers cartoon
lie to me
the office
keeping up with the kardashians
24
battlestar galactica
bones
damages
the simpsons

In the top 100, Hitwise says 83 were television-related. 8 were Law and Order searches.

Hulu was launched just over a year ago by NBC Universal in partnership with Fox. Last week, YouTube announced partnerships to place television and movie programming on its site.The internet television race is heating up!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 20, 2009, 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Digg Pulls Out of Exclusive Ad Contract with Microsoft

Digg is ending its 3 year exclusive online advertising contract with Microsoft a year early, according to ClickZ. Starting in July, Digg will form its own advertising deals. Microsoft will be kept in the inventory reserve.

Don't expect there to be bad blood between the two parties. There was always an expectation that Digg would take this course, according to what Mike Maser, Digg chief revenue and strategy officer told ClickZ.

For its part, Microsoft is looking to expand ad blitz opportunities like the one it just did with Discovery Channel and the "Deadliest Catch" season premiere. Robin Domeniconi, VP U.S., Microsoft Advertising told ClickZ that the blitzes get Microsoft away from conversations about ROI.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 20, 2009, 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Scholar: Online Library or Plagiarist's Dream

Google Scholar - in beta since 2004 - epitomizes the problems of the internet. It provides easy access to advanced research that can be used by students - but whether it is used for citations or to plagiarize is the deeper problem.

The site uses an academic approach to ranking. "Google Scholar aims to sort articles the way researchers do, weighing the full text of each article, the author, the publication in which the article appears, and how often the piece has been cited in other scholarly literature. The most relevant results will always appear on the first page."

What plagiarists must know is that professors know how to use it as well to check if they are cheating. There are even sites like turnitin.com where teachers can submit papers and have them checked for originality.

Without a doubt Google Scholar helps improve access to academic research for students, and students are becoming well aware that teachers are tech savvy as well. If used properly it is a great example of the benefits the web provides.

Google Scholar has even released a toolbar plug in for Firefox browsers.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 19, 2009, 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Free Business Websites: Yahoo Dropped, Google Still Offering

Doing a search of some of the older content on Search Engine Watch, I came across an article about Yahoo's once free business websites. That offer has long been dropped and replaced with a paid offering, while Google has had free Google Page Creator which has since been moved to Google Sites.

It is interesting to watch how Google and Yahoo explore similar products and then how one company drops one while the other keeps them. For example, Google Answers dropped but Yahoo has kept their version.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 18, 2009, 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When Will There Be A New Google Hacks Released

Every couple of years Google Hacks has been updated since its first greatly received edition in 2003 and the two subsequent updates in 2004 and 2006.

The last edition had many new Google products to cover. Now with even more updates and additions to Google products it is time for a new one. I am hoping it comes soon, I could use the help.

The people over at Google Code have produced some helpful stuff - it would be nice if there was more of these that could be easily accessed at Google.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 18, 2009, 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is Porn No Longer Profitable On Google?

Has Google banned porn advertising or has the adult industry just found that they cannot make money using Adwords anymore?

I was doing a search for googleporn.com - a domain they happen to own - and hello.com that was once a site that contained a lot of adult material also owned by Google - but is now offline.

When there used to be numerous advertisers, it seems as if the ones left are fringe sites that may not even be making money from the ads. Gone are the major companies that used to pull great ROI from Google ads.

Google has had problems with porn content in the past. Okrut and Picasa have both come under fire and had legal problems.

I will test again during the week to see if the advertisers are just weekend lurkers. But I know the terms and conditions have not totally disallowed such advertising - perhaps they have to be updated. Otherwise high minimum bids may be costing Google a lot of money - is it greed or just a way to get rid of that area of advertising?

Posted by Frank Watson on April 18, 2009, 8:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Space Shuttle Viewing and Other Dangerously Available Information

Some time ago I wrote an article about how terrorists did not need their own satellites when Google Earth and other products are available. We wonder how they know so much, when in reality with the right searches there is so much information available that makes you wonder why it is there.

You can find sites that track the whereabouts of numerous satellites and space shuttles. You can get detailed views of the earth from space shuttles from Google and other sources. The question is do we, or should we, have access.

Yes many areas are blocked, but is it enough and are they all blocked. And don't get me started on access to bomb making information and the like.

Is there too much information too freely available? It questions our right to know, but sometimes my liberal beliefs are challenged by such ideas.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 18, 2009, 7:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Facial Recognition Software Being Used To Take Attendance

Facial recognition software has been made popular from various crime shows, but it seems the real thing is now being used to take attendance at a university in the UK.

Four years ago there were search engines that measured visual similarity, now the NCIS, CSI and other crime show technology is actually being used.

The City of Ely Community College - not Oxford or Cambridge - is setting the standards of the future.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 18, 2009, 7:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Does Google Really Listen To Its Users?

Three years ago Danny Sullivan wrote two articles "25 Things I Love About Google" and "25 Things I Hate About Google". They were both good articles, though like Matt Cutts, I do not agree with all of his points. Which ones and why are very different from Matts.

But looking at the articles is a good way to see how Google has addressed user needs over the past three years.

In the Hate article, some things were addressed - the user interface, easier access to tools, RSS feeds, use of Open Directory titles and descriptions, breaking out search revenues, and Gmail customization.

But many still have not been changed - some may not need to be - such as making things paid or putting brakes on self-served AdSense - but there are some that just show a disregard for the users.

Search counts still make no sense, results are still stacked with pages from the same sites as you drill down in the hopes of better information, country specific search ( Danny's idea of a universal result seems a little dated in these days of international marketing and information written to specific cultures), giving advertisers the ability to pick and choose search (expanded has gotten even more out of hand), copyright infringement on blogger still not addressed and links to referring sites in Analytics.

Danny's call to "fix the philosophy" is a concept many people have complained about and derided for years. I guess Google believes in there is no such thing as bad publicity - as their continuing of "Do No Evil" is just a joke at this stage.

In his "love" list there are a few elements that I disagree with. Google Analytics while a decent product has killed an industry without antitrust examination. Returning search to its glory is a little too much love - Google is fast becoming a monopoly of search - and as it is the source of most people's information that is a scary thing to have in the hands of a money motivated corporation - though the government would do little better.

And if you think the willingness to censor Chinese results or have a set of rules that go beyond what is legally limited to a corporate vision is wrong. Their stance on RipOff Reports is just one such example that shows disregard for people especially when they do censor other areas.

Google has not really addressed the issues, despite Matt suggesting the artciles be looked on as bug reports. Come on guys it has been three years and yet you still have the major issues Danny listed yet to be changed.

If you want to be the big brother then act responsibly.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 18, 2009, 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

How Local Businesses Can Add Themselves To Google City Maps

Seems Google has added maps of local business locations to many of their search results and have pushed results for search results 4-10 below the fold - much to the annoyance of the companies listed there.

The only way to counter this is to get your company in the listings and do it better than your competitors. Google allows companies - in fact encourages them- to add pictures, links and other additional information that can help local business.

The Google Local Business Center tells people to, "Stand out from your competitors by adding photos, videos and more."

So if you find yourself pushed below the fold, or just want to be the best listing in the group I suggest you make use of this valuable assistance.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 18, 2009, 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

MSN Virtual Earth vs Google Earth APIs

The battle of APIs between Google and Microsoft continues with the two companies' mapping software - the similarly named earth products seem to be the most popular of the mapping applications.

MSN Virtual Earth entered the space in 2005 and has slowly developed its API.

The use of online mapping is becoming a much used feature of many websites. From tracking diseases to tracking santa the uses are many. There are maps for Grand Theft Auto and the dubious celebrity stalker sites all have made used of mapping software.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 18, 2009, 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Really, Oprah? Ashton Kutcher is the 'King' of Twitter? REALLY?

This week's "race" on Twitter to see who could get to 1 million followers the quickest has gotten on my nerves. I've never been a big fan of the "who can get the most followers" game, but usually they're easy to ignore.

This one bugged me. I don't mind celebrities using Twitter. But when I hear things like Oprah crowning Ashton Kutcher the "King" of Twitter, I think - why in the world does Oprah think she's the one who should make a proclamation?

I finally figured out why it's so annoying. Most of the time when a trend happens, it starts with celebrities. Then all the fans start wearing a fashion or driving a car or going on a certain diet or whatever.

But with Twitter, the celebrities practically came from out of nowhere and decided they were the most awesome thing to come to Twitter since, well, the millions of users who were already there.

I guess it's just that I've watched people in a variety of niches really advance Twitter, and then Oprah comes along riding coattails and interviewing celebrities.

Don't get me wrong, I love that Twitter is getting so much attention. For those of you who are trying to market your business via Twitter, having Oprah's fans on there certainly helps.

But for those of us geeks who've been on Twitter for a while, this just feels like the captain of the cheerleading squad trying to take over the yearbook. Or the chess club.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 17, 2009, 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Google Friend Connect Adds Event Widget

Google Friend Connect has added an event widget to help site administrators harness social media for event planning. When the event gadget is set up, visitors can RSVP for the event and view a map, if the event is in a physical location (aka not online).

Here's a video to show you how to do it:

Google Friend Connect launched last year as an easy way for site owners to add social networking to their websites.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 17, 2009, 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Gives More Results Sitelinks, With a Twist

Sometimes when you're searching Google, the first result will have "Sitelinks" under the main result. Like this:

Now, Google is allowing non-first results to have sitelinks, but there are fewer and they appear as one line underneath the result. Check out this snorkling result:

If you want to prevent a link from showing up in the sitelinks for any of your results, you can do so (for 90 day intervals) at Google Webmaster Tools.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 17, 2009, 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Want Visibility in Google? Become the Next Sensation on Britain's Got Talent

Susan Boyle is having the BEST WEEK EVER! As I'm sure you've seen by now, Boyle is the next big thing on Britain's Got Talent.

Google pulled out all the stops with its universal features. The results start with News then there are 2 YouTube videos, a result for a realtor in Long Beach (she's probably hating this about now), and then Blog results. Eventually, another Susan Boyle, an artist, gets first page treatment, before quickly being engulfed by more British singing sensation links.

I would like to point out that Susan Boyle achieved her special place in the limelight by being true to herself. She's an unemployed church volunteer who cared for her aging mother until she passed away in 2007.

So many times, and yes in the SEM industry, it's all about being like someone who got successful. Sure, we all need inbound links. But do you need to create a clone of work created by that "A-lister" you've placed squarely on a very high pedastal? No. It won't work for you. Just like in Britain's Got Talent or American Idol, you've got to take the ideas that inspire you and make them your own!

If you think I'm wrong to come to all of these conclusions based on a current television and YouTube sensation, I dare you to think again. Paul Potts pulled off the first singing shocker on Britain's Got Talent two years ago. His Google results today are almost as universal as Boyle's.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 17, 2009, 4:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Polls are Open for Facebook Governance Voting

In February, Facebook changed its Terms of Service to reflect a very technical change about the way they stored data. The idea was to allow content shared among users to be stored multiple times in order to not have that content removed from one user sharing the content should the other delete their Facebook account.

Somehow, in the "wisdom of the masses," this all got turned around to get most people thinking Facebook was trying to claim user-generated content as its own.

Facebook caved and returned to the old Terms of Service. They also requested feedback and said they would let users vote on the new Terms of Service, which has now been broken down into two policies: "Facebook Principles," which defines the rights of members. The second is a "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities."

Well, now the voting has begun and will run through April 23rd. That gives you almost 2 weeks to make your voice heard.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 17, 2009, 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

YouTube Offers Movies and Shows; Signs Sony, CBS and More

YouTube has signed deals with Sony Pictures, CBS (parent company of CNET News), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate, Starz, and the BBC. The deal is part of a new offering on the site for US users.

There's a new channel for this content. Simply go to YouTube and look for the new "Shows" tab in the navigational menu. If you're logged in, you'll notice another new tab for "Subscriptions."

The "Subscriptions" tab will be rolled out internationally in the coming weeks.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 17, 2009, 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Search Continues to Bring Home the Bacon for Google in Q1 2009

While Google saw an overall decrease of 3% in their first quarter results, as compared to last year's fourth quarter, their paid search actually increased 3% in the same time frame.

Compared to first quarter 2008, Google overall saw an increas of 6% with revenues of $5.51 billion. Again, search outperformed the rest of Google with an increase of 17% over Q1 2008.

Google reported revenues of $5.51 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, an increase of 6% compared to the first quarter of 2008 and a decrease of 3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2008.

GOOG stock was up 1.47% at the time of this post.

Those overall quarterly losses at Google could have been worse had they not cut operating expenses. Overall operating expenses were 28% of revenues at $1.52 billion in Q1 2009 compared to 29% of revenues at $1.65 billion in Q4 2008. Payroll was reduced to $774 million in the first quarter of 2009 compared to $890 million the quarter prior.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 17, 2009, 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

FriendFeed Adds Italian and Turkish for a Total of 9 Languages

Social media aggregator FriendFeed has added two new languages: Italian and Turkish. This brings the grand total of languages offered on Friend Feed to 10.

The other 7 are:

English
German
French
Spanish
Japanese
Russian
Simplified Chinese

You can select a language using the drop-down menu at the bottom of every page or the Account settings option.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 16, 2009, 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digg Tweaks DiggBar Again in Response to Continued SEO Criticism

Despite Digg's attempt last week to defend the DiggBar, many SEO's are still upset about the URL shortening and potential for reducing link juice.

In response, Digg's next move is to 301 redirect anyone who comes across a page with a DiggBar on it - IF they are not signed into Digg.

Digg users can also disable the bar, though Digg says very few have.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this won't appease SEO's. This almost feels like an admission by Digg that perhaps their DiggBar isn't quite as SEO-friendly as they hoped.

I can see both sides. On the one hand, Digg is trying to improve its bookmarking by allowing people to view the bookmarked sites instead of just going along Digg and voting based on headlines.

On the other hand, this isn't a traditional URL shortening service that, when the page is loaded, kills the URL and displays the page in all of its original glory.

Still, many people like to share links where you can vote a link up or down on Digg. The DiggBar is a new way to do it. Should Digg really have to strip away the DiggBar?

Does Digg's tweak help you like the DiggBar any more? Take it to the comments!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 16, 2009, 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tara Hunt, Author of The Whuffie Factor, to Give Opening Keynote at SES Toronto

The conference agenda for SES Toronto 2009 introduces some new terms and unique phrases to the search engine marketing industry. For example, the opening keynote on June 8, 2009, will be given by Tara Hunt, the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Citizen Agency and author of "The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business." In addition, SES Toronto will feature 18 sessions organized into three tracks entitled "Corporateville", "Geek Track" and "Nuts & Bolts".

Andrew Goodman at SES London 2009.jpg The event is organized and programmed in cooperation with Andrew Goodman, the founder and president of Toronto-based Page Zero Media, as well as the SES Advisory Board and Search Engine Watch. I should also disclose that SES Toronto is a client.

But I didn't realize how much my vocabulary would expand working with Goodman.

In a press release distributed this morning, Goodman quips, "Robin Williams once quipped that Canada's like a loft apartment over a really great party. But what the people at the big party don't realize is that in our loft party upstairs, we're quietly plotting global domination. Of the world of ideas, of course. 'The medium is the message'? Marshall MacLuhan. 'Gen X'? Douglas Coupland. Whuffie? Cory Doctorow to Tara Hunt. Canadians, all! So, Tweet your followers that the must-attend event will be SES Toronto. We'll get things started with Tara, the author of a book that shows how any business can increase their Whuffie, the store of social capital that is the currency of the digital world. Then, we'll follow with conference tracks that read more like blog headlines and less like title tags."

Now, I have uncovered evidence that Goodman has been plotting this takeover of the industry's thought leadership for months. Check out the interview with him that was conducted last month by Byron Gordon of SEO-PR during SES New York 2009. Listen closely and you'll hear Goodman was already using terms like "Nuts and Bolts" and "Corporateville" and "Geek Track" as if they had already become the lingua franca of search engine marketers.

Andrew Goodman, Page Zero Media, previews SES Toronto 2009

Seriously, having conference tracks that read more like blog headlines and less like title tags just reflects where the industry is headed. As Google itself says in its Webmaster guidelines, "The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community."

Tara Hunt.jpg As for Hunt, she is co-founder and chief marketing officer of Citizen Agency, an Internet consultancy specializing in community-centric strategies. She is also the author of "The Whuffie Factor," which is due out this month.

An online marketing pioneer, Hunt is a leading authority on online communities. She specializes in community marketing, which is not about pushing messages or creating strong brands, but building relationships and engaging communities.

Hunt has more than 11 years of experience in web design, eight years in online marketing and over four years of blogging at HorsePigCow. She was named by Fast Company to their list of the Most Influential Women in Technology.

As for the other new words I'm adding to my vocabulary, check out the names of some of the conference tracks and sessions at SES Toronto 2009:

• Corporateville Track: On Monday, June 8, conference sessions include: "Internationalizing Your Campaigns & Sites" and "Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions." On Tuesday, June 9, conference sessions include: "Analytics for Search: ROI, Engagement, Attribution & More"; "The Canadian Agency Landscape"; "Social Media: Do Big Companies Get It?" and "How to Speak Geek: Working Collaboratively with Your IT Department to Get Things Done".

• Geek Track: On Monday, June 8, conference sessions include: "Signals: What Relevancy Indicators Are Search Engineers Watching Today?" and "Optimizing for Video Search: Virgin Territory?" On Tuesday, June 9, conference sessions include: "Follow the Carrot: Cool Mobile Apps"; "Information Architecture, Site Performance Tuning & SEO"; "Paid Search Quality Scoring: 201, 301"; and "Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic".

• Nuts & Bolts Track: On Monday, June 8, conference sessions include: "SEO Then & Now: What's the Same? What's New?" and "Universal & Blended Search: Comprehensive Visibility Challenges". On Tuesday, June 9, conference sessions include: "Introduction to Paid Search"; "Campaign Performance Tracking: Basic Tips"; and "Tool Time: The Search Marketer's Free-to-Cheap Goodie Bag".

And on Wednesday, June 10, SES is offering a full-day workshop, "Search Marketing Boot Camp", as well as two half-day workshops, "Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop" and "Google AdWords Tactics to Improve Your ROI". Ah, finally some terms that I've been using for years.

For more information, click on SES Toronto 2009 rates and registration details. If you register through Friday, April 17, you can get the early bird rate and save $370 CAD.

You also get to increase your vocabulary at no additional charge.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 16, 2009, 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Live Search Updates Cashback Shopping Site

Microsoft's Live Search team has updated their Cashback Shopping site. They've merged Live Search Products into the Cashback site to aid in the consumer purchase decision process.

The update includes:

Improved relevance and site performance via Jellyfish (acquired by Microsoft in October 2007) migration with Live Search
Reviews and Opinion Ranking now appear on the product pages.
Browse by feature and sort by ratings

Click here to visit the Cashback shopping site. Below are screenshots:

What do you think of the new site? Let us know in the comments section below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 16, 2009, 7:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Compete.com Launches Snappy New Site Design

Compete.com has updated the look and feel of their site. If you're not familiar, Compete is a site where you can look up stats about any website for free. You'll get a general idea of what kind of traffic the site is getting. More advanced analytics are available for pro accounts.

Here is a screenshot of the new look revealing Compete's stats for SearchEngineWatch.com. (Click on the image to enlarge):

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 16, 2009, 2:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Continues Dominance in March 2009 comScore Search Engine Rankings

comScore has released their March 2009 search engine ranking data and it should come as no surprise that Google is growing their share and their overall searches. While the share keeps shifting among Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask, all 5 of the "big" engines are growing their overall searches, although some are growing more than others.

March 2009 Search Engine Market Share:

March 2009 overall Searches in Millions:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 15, 2009, 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Online Map Wars: Google Passes MapQuest Just Before Easter

Hitwise has release new dating showing Google Maps surpassing MapQuest the week ending in Easter weekend.

MapQuest visitors remain on the site longer at 10 minutes 51 seconds compared to Google Maps' 7 minutes 24 seconds. But could that mean Google Maps users are finding what they want faster? Or are people enjoying MapQuest's interactive features more?

Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 15, 2009, 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Blogger Gets in Microblogging Game with New Mobile and Email Publishing Options

If you have a blog on Blogger, you can now publish via SMS, MMS and Email on your mobile phone. This can essentially turn Blogger into a microblogging platform, if you want it to be.

Actually, the great thing about this update is that it allows your Blogger blog to be both traditional blogging mixed with microblogging. Not that you couldn't do that before. But the mobile phone options give it that "on-the-go" feel.

To set up SMS/MMS

1. Go to your Blogger dashboard
2. Click the phone icon next to the blog you wish to use the option on
3. Blogger will show you a claim code
4. Text the claim code to Blogger at 256447 (or MMS it to go@blogger.com)
5. You'll receive a verification code on your phone.
6. Type verification code back into Blogger. You're all set

To set up Email posting

1. Go to your Blogger dashboard
2. Click the envelope icon next to the blog you wish to use the option on
3. You'll be prompted to create an email address for your blog.
4. Email the address whenever you wish to publish to the blog. (If you attach photos to the email, they will be inserted between the post's title and body.)

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 15, 2009, 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Analytics to Release Change to change to Google.com search referrals

A change is coming to Google Analytics. The change involves the URL that shows the referral from Google search. Google provided the following example:

Right now, this would be the referral URL:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=flowers&btnG=Google+Search

In the future, it will look like this:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fmypage.htm&ei=0SjdSa-1N5O8M_qW8dQN&rct=j&q=flowers&usg=AFQjCNHJXSUh7Vw7oubPaO3tZOzz-F-u_w&sig2=X8uCFh6IoPtnwmvGMULQfw

Google says that you (meaning the analytics GEEKS among us) should stop depending on "/search?" and start depending on "/url?".

The change will be rolled out gradually, per most Google updates. As usual, only a small percentage will experience the change at first.

Related Reading:
No Need to Freak Out Over Google Analytics Suddenly Disappearing
New Google Analytics Guide Offers Help for Beginners
Google Analytics Launches Skills Qualification Program
Bryan Eisenberg Publishes Comprehensive Google Analytics Guide

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 15, 2009, 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ford Motor Co. Target of Malicious SEO Campaign

Panda Labs has discovered over 1 million links with Ford-related anchor text that lead to malware dressed up as anti-virus applications. The user is berated with warnings from "MS Antispyware 2009" that they need to buy software to protect their computers. Of course, MS Antispyware 2009 is not an official Microsoft product and does pretty much the exact opposite of what it advertises.

Here's what happens:

1. Internet user clicks on Ford link which leads to a video.
2. User must install a codec to watch video.
3. Once codec is installed, message pops up warning of Malware.
4. User is offered opportunity to purchase $79 anti-virus application
5. User buys and is scammed

There are fake SSL forms and the whole shebang.

Here's a video explaining more about the attack:

Targeted Blackhat SEO Attack against Ford Motor Co. from Panda Security on Vimeo.

h/t Tech Herald

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 15, 2009, 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google News Contributes to Real-Time News Trend with "Timeline of Articles"

Google News has rolled out a "Timeline of articles" so that users can keep track of events as they occur or occurred. Simply click on the link to all articles beneath a cluster of news stories about a news event. You'll see a graph on the right hand side.

I can't help but think of how there seems to be this race to compete in real-time news. Twitter has changed news because you can get real-life witness (and non-journalist) accounts about an event as it happens.

For example, earthquakes are often Tweeted, and recently Google added recent earthquake results to its main search site.

I expect to see more features along this line in Google News and other online news sites as time goes by.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 15, 2009, 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

YieldBuild Launches Premium Text Advertising Program

YieldBuild has announced the launch of their Premium Text Ad Program. The new program optimizes across text ads available from Microsoft pubCenter and other select ad sources. Advertisers will also be able to optimize background color, border style, and font choices.

"We are excited to offer our YieldBuild publishers this new program which is sure to improve their ad revenue potential," said YieldBuild CEO, Paul Edmondson. "The Premium Text Ad Program represents a new opportunity for site owners to add high-payout, high-quality text ads from respected sources to supplement other ads they are running and optimizing with YieldBuild on their sites. We are also thrilled to be able to grant qualifying publishers access to Microsoft's contextual ad network."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 14, 2009, 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AdReady Offers Streamlined Online Advertising Management Suite

AdReady today announced the release of its enhanced online advertising management software. The management suite can help advertisers manage their display ad campaigns across a variety of networks including Google and Yahoo!

The suite offers the following options:

AdReady for Advertisers - Premium Customers can target specific placements and sites, demographics, zip codes, day parting, and behavioral segments from a single platform.
AdReady for Agencies Agencies can create, manage and optimize online display campaigns for clients with a wider range of budgets. They can also brand the solution as their own.
AdReady for Publishers Fully automated, this technology platform helps sales representatives more sell inventory to a broad set of advertisers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 14, 2009, 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

NCAA Says Facebook Fan Groups Violate Recruiting Policies

The NCAA has said that Facebook groups set up by college students to woo high school student athletes violate their recruiting policies. It's against the rules for fans to recruit players, and the NCAA says these groups do just that.

NC State sent a cease-and-desist letter to freshman Taylor Moseley to shut down a group that wants to see high school basketball star John Wall pick the Wolfpack as his college team next fall.

Still, several groups remain all wanting Wall to play for their team.

But are these groups truly recruiting? They aren't commissioned by athletic departments. Are fans truly not allowed to express their hope that an athlete would choose their school?

It's understandable that schools shouldn't be allowed to send fans to recruit. Then you would see all sorts of corruption from wealthy alumni sending expensive gifts to well, other types of "favors." It's not a stretch to think these offers could be made by fans of Facebook, who have no association with the official recruiting process.

But can the NCAA really stop the speeding train that is Facebook? Or should they update their rules to fit the times? Let us know your opinion in the comments section below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 14, 2009, 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Offers Developers Early Look at Android 1.5 SDK

Google is offering developers an early-look release at Android 1.5 SDK. Version 1.5 introduces APIs for features such as

Soft keyboards
Home screen widgets
Live folders
Speech recognition

Additionally, the new version will allow the installment of Android SDK add-ons. The early look version has an add-on for the Google APIs that provides support for the Google Maps API.

The final release of the Android 1.5 SDK will occur around the end of this month. Future versions, including 1.5, will include multiple versions of the Android Platform. The early-look provides versions 1.1 and 1.5 of the platform. This will enable developers to target various platforms from a single installation.

Google first debuted Android in November of 2007.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 14, 2009, 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

11 Myths About Bloggers that Need to Be Busted

Stereotypes about bloggers have begun to formalize as blogging has taken its place in society. As usual, not all stereotypes are rooted in fact. It's time to address the following 11 myths before they are perpetuated any further.

Bloggers live and work in their parents' basements. This one is used when people are offended by bloggers or feel the need to make fun of them in some way. Most bloggers have jobs that pay the rent or mortgage for their own home - the blog is a hobby. A minute number of bloggers do make enough to live off of, and they usually end up showing off pictures of their big homes on their blogs.
The bloggers in the niche I'm interested in are so smart, I can't add anything of value to the conversation. Don't be intimidated by established niches. It's much easier to blog about what you're interested in. If you select a topic that's not interesting just to become the next big A-lister, you're dooming yourself to a life of boredom and self-hatred. Here's my advice: I once attended an improvisational acting seminar where the great Jill Bernard told us to copy other improvisers that inspire us. The reason is that nothing is truly original - and that the character would look different on us anyway. She's right and the same applies to blogging.
Bloggers work in their pajamas. Some do. Some don't. Others mix it up.
Bloggers write because they cannot do. The idea behind this myth is that bloggers aren't knowledgeable about their niche. Nonsense. Most bloggers write about niches or industries that they are passionate about and actively participate in.
Bloggers are hecklers. In the documentary Heckler, bloggers are portrayed as harsh critics who spew a never-ending stream of vicious hatred. While certainly there are bad apples out there, many write about things they love, not topics they hate.
All bloggers use Macs. There are millions of bloggers, and Apple still has a minority PC marketshare. Also, contrary to popular belief, Mac OS isn't intuitive for everyone.
Bloggers will endorse anything for money. A Pew internet study in 2006 showed that only 7 percent of bloggers do it to make money.
Bloggers influence the media. Actually, most blog to express themselves creatively. Only about 200 bloggers (out of millions) influence the media.
Bloggers consider themselves online journalists. Most do not. Most are giving their opinion or, again, expressing themselves creatively.
Bloggers are nerds with thick glasses. This stereotype was portrayed on SNL over the weekend. But most of the bloggers I've met have more of a preppy look going on. Almost yuppie-ish.
It's easy to become a successful blogger. Not even close. Blogging requires good communication skills that can be transferred through writing, video, or photography. You also need perserverance for those days that are mind numbing. Even when you're getting paid, there are days when you don't know how you're going to write about your topic - yet again! It's much easier to get a gig writing for an established blog than it is to start one and keep with it until it pays. In the beginning, without pay, the temptation to bail on work that doesn't (yet) pay is great - and consumes most bloggers.

Are there any blogging myths you would like to clear up? Do so in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 14, 2009, 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Is Amazon Homophobic? Or Were Rankings Broke?

Seems Amazon has had some problems with books on gays and lesbians intheir sales rankings, according to the Huffington Post. People noticed sales rankings had dropped and search results were giving odd responses recently.

A search for homosexuality was returning "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality" over the weekend. The delisting was apparently fixed today, though some books have fallen under the adult categorization which removes them from main stream searches.

No doubt there will be more discussion on the topic in coming days.

Amazon issued a public statement:

"This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future."

Meanwhile an opportunistic hacker made a claim to having caused the problem, according to PCWorld.

Kate Harding of Salon.com makes an interesting comment on the event:

"Also, it's still not a real apology to all the authors and publishers affected, or the customers who had pretty good reason to wonder if Amazon had indeed instated a homophobic and misogynistic corporate policy, but "ham-fisted and embarrassing" is a surprisingly honest and accurate start."

Posted by Frank Watson on April 13, 2009, 7:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mass Exodus From Silicon Valley Reflecting Increase in Telecommunting?

Seems it is hard to come by U-Hauls in Silicon Valley these days. There has been a major exodus from the area, both due to a decrease in jobs and the increased employment of telecommunting.

WebGuild reports that thousands of people are leaving the area and few are coming to replace them.

Interestingly H-1B visa applications - people applying to enter the US for work purposes - are also down. Usually the applications are closed almost as soon as they open availability April 1 - but as of today the 65,000 available slots had not been filled or applied for fully.

I personally know two people planning on moving from the area to Florida. Guess the weather, no income taxes and lower real estate prices are a big allure.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 13, 2009, 7:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wozniak Joins Deep Web Search Company

DeepDyve - the 'deep web' search startup - announced Steve Wozniak has join their advisory board, the Industry Standard reported.

"DeepDyve, formerly known as Infovell, switched its name and business model last year. Instead of trying to sell itself as a business utility, DeepDyve now plans to build a consumer-focused, advertising-driven business," the Industry Standard noted.

"DeepDyve is a research engine for the Deep Web or invisible web which is that part of the Web that is not index-able by search engines like Google," WebGuild stated.

DeepDyve goes beyond keyword indexing used by most current search engines. As the site explains, "DeepDyve's KeyPhrase technology extracts substantially more information from documents than typical keywords. It indexes every word, as well as every phrase in each document, and weighs their informational impact using advanced statistical computation."

Given that the deep web holds much more information than is available through the main search engines this area offers a new way for people to access information.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 13, 2009, 7:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Is Social Media The Key To Challenging Google?

ValleyWag reported that Facebook is now providing 19% of Google's search traffic, add in 3% or so from MySpace (that could get higher if implemented better) and the fact that Twitter is fast becoming a major traffic source for many websites and you can start to see the influence that social media have on search.

Granted Google has strong relationships with most of the social media companies, but if that were to change Google could see a drop in their high percentage of market share, Wonder why Microsoft has not thought of this yet!

Posted by Frank Watson on April 13, 2009, 6:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

StumbleUpon Buy Themselves Back From eBay

The founders of StumbleUpon and a group of investors have bought the company back from online auction giant eBay, ReadWriteWeb reported today.

This should allow the social bookmarking company to come out from the shadows and regain some of its popularity.

As Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb notes "Founders are where the innovative juice is, often, and if a big conglomerate that buys those startups can't figure out how to make effective use of these incredibly disruptive technologies - then they should get out of the way."

StumbleUpon has about the same number of users as Twitter though their recent growth is much less. Now that it is back in the hands of its founders perhaps that number will grow.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 13, 2009, 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No Need to Freak Out Over Google Analytics Suddenly Disappearing

Last week, there were reports swirling the internet about how many of the top 10,000 sites would soon lose their Google Analytics reporting because they were using outdated code. Not surprisingly, this was just a rumor.

Here are the facts:

1. Google does indeed have updated Google Analytics code, called ga.js.
2. The new code has been installed on all new accounts for about a year.
3. There are no plans to retire the old code, Urchin.js anytime soon.
4. When Urchin.js is finally laid to rest, site owners and developers will be given plenty of notice.

Google did take the opportunity to point out why it may be advantageous to upgrade to the new code, in case you still have urchin.js installed. Those reasons are:

Faster, smaller source file
Automatic detection of HTTPS
Increased namespace safety
More convenient set up for tracking e-commerce transactions
More customizable code for interactive Ajax-based sites
Ability to take advantage of the most up-to-date tracking functionality as it is added to Google Analytics

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 13, 2009, 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ex-Yahoo! Tapped as Vice President of Ad Operations at interCLICK

Dave Myers, formerly the senior director of advertiser marketplace operations at Yahoo! has been selected by online advertising network, interCLICK, to be their new vice president of ad operations. Myers will oversee day-to-day operations including media buying, account management, analytics and ad operations

While at Yahoo!, Myers led the go-to-market and operational integration between Yahoo! and Right Media. Last July, Jason Lynn, the Director of Solutions Engineering for Yahoo/Right Media left Sunnyvale to join interCLICK.

"Supply chain management plays a strategic role in delivering scalable results for our clients," said Michael Katz, president of interCLICK. "Aligning organizational infrastructure with product to meet client demands is our number one priority as we continue to scale the company. Dave possesses the precise operational expertise and proven leadership capabilities which will allow us to execute on our vision."

Prior to Yahoo!, Myers was enterprise services engagement manager for Microsoft Corporation.

Related Reading:
Ad Network interCLICK Expands to Los Angeles
Q3 Earnings for MySpace, interCLICK and Answers Corp.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 13, 2009, 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft and Discovery Channel Partner for 'Deadliest Catch' Cross-Channel Ad Blitz

The fifth season of Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" begins tomorrow night at 9pm and the network chose Microsoft to conduct a cross-channel ad blitz. The ads will be seen on MSN, MSN Mobile, Windows Live Hotmail, Microsoft Live Search and Xbox LIVE.

"Microsoft Advertising got it right on the first try," said Danelle Sabathier, director, Digital Media Marketing, Discovery Networks. "They showed us they have the audience reach, resources and original content at their fingertips to create killer ad campaigns that have the potential to drive buzz and excitement, which is exactly what we were looking for the fifth season of our hit show. We are thrilled with the level of service our team received and how simple the process was."

Discovery Channel has purchased 90% of the inventory on MSNBC, Fox Sports, MSN, MSN Mobile and Xbox LIVE to promote the "Deadliest Catch" premiere on April 14.

"The doors to our one-stop shop are open," said Keith Lorizio, vice president of U.S. sales, Microsoft Advertising. "The Deadliest Catch campaign demonstrates how we are making it easier for customers to buy and integrate multiplatform digital campaigns. In partnership with just one publisher, advertisers reach a targetable, premium online audience where they consume digital content most -- PC, mobile and TV screens."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 13, 2009, 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo! First Page Advertisers Increase by 10% in Q1 2009

When Yahoo! announced that its quarterly earnings will be released Tuesday, April 21, I mentioned that it could be too soon to see any changes due to the installation of a new CEO in Carol Bartz. But, hopefully, I might be wrong.

AdGooroo has released its first quarter search engine data and they're showing Yahoo! as seeing an almost 10% increase in first page advertisers. Check out the chart below. Google and Microsoft both saw some decreases in at least one of the first three months of 2009. Yahoo! saw only gains.

"Unlike findings from previous reports, Google's Ad Coverage diverged significantly from its estimated growth in active advertisers in Q109. We haven't seen this in our analysis until now," said AdGooroo Founder and Chief Gooroo Rich Stokes.

Still, Google maintains a stronghold on the search advertising share:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 13, 2009, 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Q&A with Piera Palazzolo, SVP of Dale Carnegie Training

One of the new tracks at SES New York 2009 was focused on "Search & the C-Level Executive." As I pointed this out during the "First Timer's Guide to SES and SEM" session, I was asked what a C-level exectutive was. I quipped it was any executive who could keep his or her head above water in this economy. No one got the joke.

SES New York 2009.jpg Seriously, a C-level executive is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief Finanancial Officer (CFO), Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Chief Learning Officer (CLO) or any of the other chiefs that us Native American Indians report to.

But it's noteworthy that some search engine marketing (SEM) specialists, search engine optimization (SEO) consultants, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertisers aren't familiar with business jargon like "C-level." Hey, it's a search term that costs $2.19 a click.

Apparently, some of us have been burried so deeply in our organizations that we don't talk the talk of the "C-suite", another search term that costs $1.39 a click. But that was changing before the recession, which is now in its 16th month, although it has rapidly accelerated as executives revised our budgets during the most severe recession in 70 years.

Today, all of us in the search engine marketing industry need to talk the talk of the C-suite and walk the walk of calculating our marketing return on investment (ROI). That's why Search Engine Strategies added the "Search & the C-Level Exectuve" track.

One of the sessions in the track was entitled, "Implementing a Digital Corporate Governance Program." When I was asked during the "First Timer's Guide to SES and SEM" session what that would cover, I had to lamely explain, "Hey, that's why I come to SES events: To learn things that I didn't know already."

Nevertheless, I vowed to find out what "Implementing a Digital Corporate Governance Program" was all about by interviewing Piera Palazzolo, Senior Vice President of Dale Carnegie Training, who was one of the speakers at the session.

Dale Carnegie Training is the oldest training company in the world, originally based on Dale Carnegie's world famous best seller: "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Dale Carnegie has 200 offices, both franchised and company owned, in over 70 countries on six continents.

As its first woman senior executive, Mrs. Palazzolo joined the Company in 1993 and was elected to the Senior Leadership Team in 2002. Previously, she was VP of Account Services at J. Walter Thompson (JWT). During her tenure at JWT, Mrs. Palazzolo oversaw both consumer and business to business accounts. In 1986, she helped launch Prodigy -- a pioneering company in online services. She serviced a variety of marketers including GE Capital and Ford Motor Company.

Over the last 15 years Mrs. Palazzolo has overseen the company's foray into online marketing, print and radio advertising and direct mail and sales support. Here are my questions and her answers:

Q: First of all, Piera, tells us a little bit about Dale Carnegie Training.

A: "Dale Carnegie partners with middle market and large corporations, as well as organizations, to produce measurable business results by improving the performance of employees with emphasis on leadership, sales, team member engagement, customer service, presentations, process improvement and other essential management skills. Recently identified by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top 25 high-performing franchises, the Dale Carnegie Training programs are available in more than 25 languages throughout the entire United States and in more than 75 countries. Dale Carnegie includes as its clients 400 of the Fortune 500 companies. Approximately 7 million people have experienced Dale Carnegie Training."

Q: I understand that you are migrating your marketing efforts from print to digital media. Can you tell us what Dale Carnegie Training is doing?

A: "Paid Search, Organic SEO. Paid search and organic SEO have proved to be the most cost effective way of driving leads online. We also use e-mail marketing to the leads we generate which has been very successful."

Q: As companies migrate their marketing efforts online, can the costs of implementing an effective program skyrocket quickly if a proper governance program is not in place?

A: "Yes, when dealing with multiple business units it is imperative that a governance program is in place to prevent duplication of effort and cannibalization of terms in paid search. In order to maximize budget a centralized approach has worked well for Dale Carnegie and allows us to provide very strategic marketing support to our franchisees."

Q: What can companies that have multiple business units or franchisees do to avoid the common pitfalls of cannibalization of budget and dilution of brand?

A: "Implement a corporate governance program and enforce it. It serves no useful purpose to run multiple campaigns with the same goals and compete against yourself."

Q: What are some of best practices for implementing a governance program that coordinates marketing efforts and optimizes budget across lines of business, geographic regions and organizational "fiefdoms"?

A: "Dale Carnegie has been in business for over 96 years and has always believed that a centralized marketing approach with clear brand messaging and guidelines works best. We simply took that same belief and strategy to the Web and have not run into some of the problems other major brands have faced in their online migration."

Jason Ferrara, SVP of Sales & Marketing at Elixir Interactive, moderated the "Implementing a Digital Corporate Governance Program" session at SES New York 2009. Following the session, he also interviewed Mrs. Palazzolo for SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube.

Piera Palazzolo, Dale Carnegie Training, on implementing a corporate governance program

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 13, 2009, 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digg Search is Now Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Digg has introduced an updated search to their social bookmarking site. Design head Daniel Burka outlined the changes in a post on the Digg blog. The updates include:

Filtering by factors such as Digg count, topic, time, etc.

Advanced shortcuts to search for specific promotion characteristics. Add +p to your query for only promoted stories, +u for upcoming stories, and +b for buried.

Common search tricks - quotes for exact match and a negative sign before the term to keep that term out of results

A graph demonstrating the historical trend of a term

Searching for stories from a particular domain is much more effective. Filtering results by domain is also available.

New RSS feeds allow users to create feeds for a given topic but filter out results they don't wish to see

Digg search is faster

What do you think of the Digg search updates? Let us know in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 10, 2009, 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Send a Geeky Easter Greeting with Help from Google Latitude

Google Latitude is now offering the ultimate in geek greetings. You can customize a video to make it look like you sent a bunch of people out with phones that have GPS into San Francisco in order to make a message on Google Maps.

Unfortunately, you can't embed the videos that you customize, which is a bummer because I created one that said "Thxfor Reading." (You don't get too many letters.)

Below is the original. Click here to customize a greeting.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 10, 2009, 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

YouTube and Universal to Partner for New Music Site, VEVO

Apparently, if you want to start an online video site, you must come up with a name that is two syllables and heavy on the vowels. Cases in point:

YouTube
Veoh
Hulu

Soon, there will be one more to add to the list: VEVO. The site is a partnership between YouTube and Universal Music Group to feature the record company's video content.

It was just last December that Universal was part of talks with other music companies to form a Hulu-like site for music videos. It seems that YouTube stepped in and was able to at least stave off one of the big guys from starting the thing.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 10, 2009, 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Digg Says Diggbar is SEO Friendly (But You Can Still Block It If You Want)

When Digg launched the Diggbar last week, it seemed to follow a trend that social media and bookmarking is taking. But for most, there was just one problem: in the URL box in your browser is a tiny URL created by Digg instead of the full URL of the site. Naturally, SEO concerns over PageRank and canonical issues arose.

Digg is responding with this:

Prior to launching the DiggBar, we reached out to Google and SEO experts to ensure we adhered to the leading best practices, as we framed and linked directly to source content via the DiggBar. This process involved gathering feedback from publishers to ensure the execution was as content-provider-friendly as possible. We took several steps to ensure that search engines continue to count the original source, versus registering the DiggBar as new content. We include only links to the source URLs on Digg pages to allow spiders to see the unmodified links to source sites. These links are overwritten to short URLs in JavaScript for users who have this preference.
We launched a few additional updates early this week to address some lingering concerns in the SEO and publishing communities around the infamous (and sometimes mysterious) search engine 'juice'. We always represent the source URL as the preferred version of the URL to search engines and use the meta noindex tag to keep DiggBar pages out of search indexes. For those of you interested in the technical details, we also include link rel="canonical" information to indicate that the original URL is the real (canonical) version. Additional URL properties, like PageRank and related signals, are transferred as well. This is recommended by Google, Ask.com, Microsoft and Yahoo!.

There's also been some discussion about how traditional web analytics and panel based companies like Quantcast, Compete, Nielson and Comscore track shortened URLs. While we don't claim to represent any specific methodology, we've reached out to Comscore and Nielson and they both confirmed that publisher traffic statistics won't be impacted by the DiggBar implementation. Also, any quantitative tag employed by Quantcast, Compete and Comscore's new hybrid methodology will also register the source as the page view.

Still, there are those who are not BiggFans of the DiggBar. Take John Gruber over at Daring Fireball, for example. He's shared a code that blocks the DiggBar.

I'm not a big Digg user myself, but I do use StumbleUpon and, of course, click on links from Twitter, and have been coming across the DiggBar. It comes across as not really wanting to share information and/or network, they just wanted a Digg.

What do you, dear reader, think of the DiggBar? Do you trust Digg or will you go Gruber's route? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 10, 2009, 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

FTC's Proposed Social Media Marketing Regulations Target Bloggers

If the Federal Trade Commission has its way, bloggers and social network users will soon be liable for their reviews of businesses and products. New regulations would allow them to be sued for anything they write that would be false.

Supposedly, these new regulations would be restricted to "pay-per-post" content, but I'm sure lawyers will find a way to target all content. (Hint: they already do. These regulations would help, yes, the lawyers!)

The FTC should go back to elementary school. That's when kids learn that opinions are not true or false - only facts are. They even have homework assignments about it.

When you see a celebrity endorse a consumer brand in traditional advertising, does anyone really believe that celebrity uses the brand? Or do we ~~know~~ think that they use some high-end brand that 0.000001% of America can afford?

Is the FTC suddenly going to be tailing Padma Lakshmi to see if she really does eat Hardee's Western Bacon Thickburgers on a stoop in New York City? Especially since there isn't a Hardee's in New York City? (Oh you thought that was Chicago? It's not. There are no Hardee's there either.) (Apologies to Chris Applebaum.)

And here's the clincher. Are they going to punish politicians for all of their false advertising? Both the promises that never get fulfilled and the attacks that stretch the truth?

For a government agency full of people staffed by politicians, going after bloggers for truthiness is like the pot calling the kettle black.

That's just my opinion. What's yours? Leave a comment below, if you dare. The FTC may allow you to get sued for it later.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 10, 2009, 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Yelp to Allow Local Business Response to User Reviews

There have been many a tale of a business owner here or there who is none too thrilled with the review the get on Yelp. Even doctors are requiring patients to sign forms saying they won't give a negative review online because of negative reviews on Yelp.

Of course, there are those who take it in stride, such as the San Francisco pizzeria that decided to start printing their 1 star reviews on T-shirts. (And then customers started giving 1 star reviews in the hopes of seeing their review on a shirt.)

But let's face it, not everyone has a good sense of humor.

So, Yelp has decided to let businesses respond to user reviews. Sense of humor or not, this is a wise decision on Yelp's part. And hopefully, physicians will take advantage of it instead of bullying their patients into keeping them un-accountable.

Save The Boston Globe or Increase Traffic to Boston.com?

The New York Times Company, which owns The Boston Globe, has threatening to stop the presses for good unless union workers agree to $20 million in cuts. The Globe, which has been printed for 137 years, has been saddled with reader flight and a drop in advertising -- problems echoed in newsrooms across the country.

Greg Jarboe at SES New York session.jpg On Wednesday, Scot Lehigh, a Globe political columnist, asked readers if they would pay for the Globe online. Today, no one should be shocked, shocked to find that many readers said they'd pay for the Globe online. Lehigh should recognize the flawed result you get when conducting what is called in politics a "push poll."

I read The Boston Globe every day and would love to save it, but that may be as hard to do as saving Out of Town News in Harvard Square. So, we need to ask: Can we save a great newspaper in the 21st Century, or should we be trying to save excellence in journalism?

I think our objective should be to save excellent journalism in Boston and I recently wrote about this in a post entitled "Death of newspapers or new era of online journalism?"

I also think charging visitors even a nickle to read content from the Globe online would be a strategic mistake. Circulation revenue doesn't pay journalist's salaries. At best, it is a break even proposition that covers the cost of home delivery and distributing newspapers to a shrinking number of newsstands. So, the real goal shouldn't be boosting subscription revenue; it should be increasing traffic to Boston.com.

A similar thing happened in the late 19th Century, when the number of daily newspapers in the United States quadrupled. "Falling paper and production costs and the growth in advertising, along with improved transportation, enabled newspapers to cut their prices and extend their markets," according to Paul Starr's book, "The Creation of the Media."

What was then called the "new journalism" also drove the growing popularity of newspapers. One news-generating innovation was the "banner headline." Another was "the interview," an American invention. Still others were the creation of sports pages and women's sections in the 1880s as well as comic strips in the following decade.

What should the new "new journalism" of the 21st Century include?

Back in February, ReelSEO released a first-of-its-kind, in-depth report on the opportunity for U.S. newspaper companies to grow their audience and advertising base using video search optimization (Video SEO or VSEO). Written by Senior Analyst Grant Crowell, "Business Models for New Realities: The Newspapers Industry's Video SEO Opportunity" is the culmination of more than 2 years of industry research, along with interviews with editors and publishers of newspaper companies nationwide.

I was one of the analysts who was interviewed for the report and was quoted in a press release when it was announced. I said, "If you do a SWOT analysis of newspapers, their strengths are in print, their weaknesses are online, but their opportunities are in online video, and their threats are legion. That's why newspaper executives should read this report today, not tomorrow."

After you attract and engage a sufficient quantity and quality of readers, then the next challenge will be finding a business model that charges advertisers a reasonable amount of money to reach this audience -- in a global recession. That's a tough proposition.

At SES New York 2009, I interviewed Beverly Thorne, the SVP of Century 21 Real Estate, who has made the decision to leave offline advertising and re-invest those dollars into online advertising. Bev said when Century 21 focused on what their business model's opportunities were online, Century 21 was able to increase its leads by more than 237% with their spend in 2008. At the same time, cost per lead dropped 62%. She said it was emotionally difficult making the decision to migrate online, but Century 21's consumers are online.

Beverly Thorne, Century 21 Real Estate, discusses how company migrated to online advertising

So, what can Boston.com do to boost its ad revenues? Well, Philly.com, which hosts online content from The Inquirer and the Daily News, has just joined a consortium of media companies partnering with Yahoo! to increase online advertising.

This is just an outline, but it's a formula for saving excellence in Boston journalism: Don't charge for online content, use video search engine optimization, and join the Yahoo! newspaper consortium.

Oh, and stop conducting push polls of readers. That's no way to conduct market research.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 10, 2009, 6:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Yahoo! to Announce Q1 Earnings Call Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Yahoo! will hold their first quarter earnings call on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 2pm Pacific /5pm Eastern. There will be a live webcast of the call, which can be accessed at http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/results.cfm.

The first quarter of 2009 was also the first quarter with new CEO Carol Bartz at the helm for Yahoo! While she's been busy reorganizing, this quarter will likely be too early to see any reflection of her influence.

Then there's that pesky thing called an economy, which throws uncertainty into the mix for all earnings calls right now. There have been some pleasant surprises as of late (Wells Fargo), so we can only hope that Yahoo! has some good news in store as well.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 10, 2009, 1:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ask.com Taps Anchor Intelligence for Click Fraud Reduction

Ask.com has selected Anchor Intelligence to assist in reducing click fraud. Anchor Intelligence says it uses network security intelligence to identify fraud. Such methods include spam traps, honeypots, and stealth servers.

"Superior quality, optimal performance, and enhanced security are fundamental to the Ask.com brand and search experience," said Mark Stockford, CIO, Ask.com. "Through our partnership with Anchor Intelligence, Ask.com can further apply these fundamental priorities to the experience of our advertising customers. This move demonstrates Ask.com's commitment to providing advertisers across the marketplace with the most valuable, impactful, and reliable advertising traffic available online."

Anchor Intelligence's real-time traffic scoring system, ClearMark, classifies traffic according to quality, which they say enables ad networks and search engines to provide the maximum value for each click.

"Investing in third-party solutions like ClearMark is a necessary next step for search engines and ad networks looking to retain and grow advertising spend during a time when advertisers are demanding better performance," said Ken Miller, CEO of Anchor Intelligence. "Marketers need to show high returns on their advertising investments, and ClearMark gives search engines the insights needed to make that happen. By selecting Anchor Intelligence, Ask.com has taken that groundbreaking next step to protect its advertisers and their investments online."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 9, 2009, 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Updates BOSS with Three New Capabilities

In July of last year, Yahoo! launched BOSS which stands for Build your Own Search Service. The concept behind the service is to enable web developers to create search options for various websites and applications based on Yahoo! search technology.

Last November, Yahoo! enabled Key Terms for BOSS. Then in January came the announcement that Yahoo! would be charging for BOSS usage (which will begin at some point in the second quarter of this year).

Now another announcement comes in the form of added capabilities. They are:

Delicious content (including Delicious saves, top tags, and count information)
Advanced language capabilities
News sorting functionality

What do you think of this update? Have you used BOSS? Share your experience in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 9, 2009, 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

YouTube Click-to-Buy Expands to Eight Additional Countries

Last October, YouTube launched Click-to-Buy which is an attempt to monetize the popular online video site. The program allows advertisers to offer a simple and direct way to sell their products featured via video.

The program opened initially just to the U.S. and the U.K. In January, it was expanded to Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. Now, 8 more countries are being offered Click-To-Buy. They are:

Australia
Canada
France
Ireland
Italy
Japan
New Zealand
Sweden

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 9, 2009, 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google AdWords to Update Conversion Metrics in New Interface

Google AdWords has slowly been rolling out and expanding the beta version of their new interface. Now with the beta interface is coming a new way to view conversions.

Currently, the AdWords interface only shows 1-per-click conversions. In other words, if a customer clicks on your ad and makes a purchase one day, then returns another day without clicking on the ad, only one conversion is counted. In coming months, the new interface will offer two ways to look at such conversions:

"Conversions" columns are now labeled Conversions (1-per-click)
"Transactions" columns are now called Conversions (many-per-click)

The many per click can count that next sale that doesn't come through the ad. It can also count a non-sale conversion such as a newsletter signup.

The new interface isn't the only AdWords tool getting the new conversion metric definitions. Over time, AdWords Editor and the AdWords API will get the metrics as well.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 9, 2009, 6:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hit Film Twilight Tops Twitter Searches

Hitwise has released data revealing the top searches conducted on Twitter for the week ending March 21, 2009. At the top of the list is the film sensation Twilight, based on a book series of the same name. Never heard of it? Ask your local teenager.

Meanwhile, here are the top 25 searches, per Hitwise:

Hitwise also reports that entertainment searches were the top category of searches in the top 75 search terms. They consisted of 29% of those searches.

Here are the top 10 celeb searches:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 8, 2009, 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Adds Color Filter to Image Search

Google has added a handy color filter to its image search. Simply conduct the search and then look for the color box to filter down the search.

Interestingly, you get different results if you actually type the color in with your search. The screenshots below show:

1. a general search for "bike"
2. a general search for "bike" with color filter set to "green"
3. a search for "green bike" with color filter set to "Show all colors"

(Also, color filter didn't show up for a search for "ice cream")

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 8, 2009, 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

NADAguides.com Offers Comprehensive Car Search Tools

NADAguides.com has completed the development of its comprehensive car buying tools. The tools are designed to be intuitive to the research, decision-making and buying process. Here's what to expect:

Vehicle Search - This is a good place to start if you don't already know what type of vehicle you wish to buy. Search by custom criteria including price, body style, manufacturer, MPG and more. The results, of course, will return back vehicles matching those specifications.
Vehicle Comparison - When you know a few models you're interested in, you can compare up to four at a time with this handy tool. Compare makes, models, trim levels, or years.
Total Cost of Ownership - This is a useful tool because it includes things that are often forgotten during the car buying process. The tool calculates the cost of owning a given vehicle over a 5 year period including depreciation, financing, insurance, maintenance and opportunity costs.

This type of search emphasizes the idea that marketing begins with the product. Vehicles that do well in NADAguides.com search tools will be the ones meeting customers desires and needs.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 8, 2009, 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook's Rapid Growth Continues with 200 Million Members

Facebook says it expects to welcome its 200 millionth member today. It was just January when Facebook announced 150 million members.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg sees Facebook as more than just social networking, he sees it as a force for social action. Writing on the Facebook blog, Zuckerberg said:

Creating channels between people who want to work together towards change has always been one of the ways that social movements push the world forward and make it better. Both U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Nicholas Sarkozy have used Facebook as a way to organize their supporters. From the protests against the Colombian FARC, a 40-year old terrorist organization, to fighting oppressive, fringe groups in India, people use Facebook as a platform to build connections and organize action.

What do you think of Facebook's rapid success? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 8, 2009, 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

comScore Releases Surprising Twitter Statistics

comScore has released some interesting statistics about Twitter. It will come as no surprise that Twitter traffic is on the rise. What is surprising is who's driving the traffic.

45-54 year olds are the top demographic. The more expeccted demo of 25-34 year olds following closely behind at second. But notice how boomers and senior citizens are getting Twitter on more likely than their grandchildren:

Twitter is also seeing an explosion of growth internationally:

What do you think of these statistics? Leave us a comment below to let us know.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 8, 2009, 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

AOL's Platform-A Promotes Mark Ellis to EVP of Sales

AOL Platform-A has been going through some big management changes. Recently, they named ex-Googler Tim Armstrong as their CEO.

Today, AOL is announcing that they are promoting from within. Mark Ellis has been promoted from senior vice president of Vertical and Product Sales to executive vice president of Sales.

"One of our key areas of focus at Platform-A is to build the best ad sales team in the business, and in his years with AOL and Platform-A, Mark has proved himself as best qualified to achieve that," said Platform-A resident Greg Coleman. "Mark's knowledge of the industry, his commitment to clients, and his relations with leaders in the industry is unequaled. He also has a proven track record - starting with his success in reinvigorating our automotive relationships in Detroit. Platform-A has the largest scale and the best technologies in the business. And with the improvements we're making to our sales team, we will be able to more effectively bring this truly unmatched offer to advertisers looking to deliver their key marketing messages online."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 8, 2009, 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Get On Board the OMS and ClickZ Regional Whistle Stop Tour

The Online Marketing Summit (OMS) and ClickZ have teamed up to launch a "whistle stop tour" of internet marketing seminars, SEO workshops, and educational events, under the OMS brand. OMS will also be offering thousands of marketing professionals in 17 cities across the U.S. who attend one of these local events the opportunity to participate in the Online Marketing Institute's new "Essentials of Online Marketing" Certification Workshop.

whistle stop tour.jpg The 2009 OMS Whistle Stop Tour starts in Boston on May 5, 2009, and will be stopping at New York on May 7, Philadelphia on May 8, Washington, D.C. on May 14, Austin on May 18, Houston on May 20, Dallas on May 21, Chicago on May 27, Milwaukee on May 29, Minneapolis on June 2, Denver on June 4, Atlanta on June 10, Charlotte on June 12, Orange County on June 16, San Francisco on June 25, Portland, OR, on June 2 and Seattle on July 1.

With daily posts, tweets and video at each stop, "The Whistle Stop Tour" can be followed at http://blog.onlinemarketingconnect.com/ and http://www.clickz.com. At each stop, leading experts in online marketing will share best practices through hands-on classes, thought leadership panels, and credit-worthy workshops. No vendor pitches and no sales-folk will be allowed!

The 2009 OMS Summit includes sessions on:
-- Social Media Business Strategies
-- Search Engine Marketing in-depth education
-- Website Usability Primers
-- Customer Experience Best Practices
-- Web Analytics & ROI Tracking
-- Planning & Budgeting for Online Success
-- Email Marketing & Landing Page Tactics
-- Website Strategy Thought Leadership
-- Behavioral Targeting & Testing

During SES New York 2009, John Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed Aaron Kahlow, founder of Online Marketing Summit. That was when there were only 15 cities on the tour. Since then, two more have been added.

Aaron Kahlow, Online Marketing Summit, on the ClickZ 15 city tour

To register, visit https://www.onlinemarketingsummit.com/registration/. For more details on the Online Marketing Summit event and other ClickZ events including free online marketing webinars visit http://events.clickz.com/.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 8, 2009, 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shoemoney Suing Google Employee for Breaching Google's T&Cs?

Seems Jeremy Shoemaker aka Shoemoney is suing someone who is being allowed to advertise on Google for his trademarked term - a Google T&C no no - and according to TechCrunch, the person may be a Google employee.

In the past Google AdWords reps were encouraged and given money to use the system so they would better know their clients questions. Hopefully, this was not the money being used.

Jeremy had tried through Cease and Desist letters and had to get a court order to get the name of the person violating his trademark, TechCrunch reported. Google did not comment and the person has yet to come forward to comment.

Posted by Frank Watson on April 7, 2009, 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Using Video Spokespeople to Increase Landing Page Conversions

When I speak on the topic of landing page optimization I am often asked about embedded video and the use of the walk-on video spokespeople that appear from the lower right corner of the page.

Of course the effectiveness of embedded video players and spokespeople depend on the offer, product, and of course the context and intent of the audience.

Do spokespeople actually increase conversion?

To readers of my column the answer should be familiar by now - test it. We often include the addition of spokespeople in our landing page tests.

Recent tests on companies using Innovative Media Group's video spokespeople suggest that dramatic gains can be realized:

- ClosetWorld added embedded video to their landing page and then a video spokesperson as well. This increased conversion rates from 0.5% to 1.0% and 2.2% respectively.

- Tanberg increased the conversion on their lead-generation page from 0.75% to 2.2% by adding a spokesperson.

Big companies are piling onto the bandwagon as well. Other recent successes include Napster, Service Magic, and Rhapsody.

Check out the DishyMix audio interview and transcript with Innovative Media's CEO John Cecil.

Posted by Tim Ash on April 7, 2009, 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

AutoTrader.com Sees Record Traffic in March 2009

16.07 million unique visitors checked out AutoTrader.com in March, a record for the vehicle search site. Traffic was up 2 million from just two months prior, suggesting a shift in the way people are searching and shopping for cars.

Of course, increased eyeballs are only good news if they translate into conversions or action of some sort. Fortunately, for AutoTrader.com, they are seeing good news indeed. Contacts between shoppers and sellers (both dealers and private) were up 18% in March compared to the same month last year.

"The current state of the economy is accelerating the trend we've seen developing for some time," said AutoTrader.com President and CEO Chip Perry. "Now more than ever people want to make every dollar count and they want to know they're getting the right car at the right price from a dealer they can count on. And the Internet is the best way for buyers to find the information they are looking for."

What's your interpretation of AutoTrader.com's good fortune? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 7, 2009, 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apartment Finder Partners with Online Real Estate Classifieds Network, OLX.com

Real estate search site ApartmentFinder.com has announced a new partnership with online real estate classifieds network, OLX.com. Through the agreement, OLX.com will publish thousands of apartment listings on their network which reaches 84 countries and in 36 languages. OLX becomes the third company to engage in such a partnership with Apartment Finder. The other two are Vast.com and AJCHomeFinder.com.

"We understand how vitally important it is for consumers to interact with our advertisers' listings when they are shopping for an apartment," says Marcia Bollinger, president, Apartment Finder. "That is why we look for every opportunity to help make that connection, especially on the web. Our partnership with OLX.com allows us to offer our advertisers exposure to millions of additional apartment renters while enhancing the online search experience for home shoppers."

OLX.com was founded in March 2006 by Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenford and is based out of New York, NY and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

ApartmentFinder.com is owned by parent company Network Communications, Inc.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 7, 2009, 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is the AP Shooting Itself in the Foot By Pursuing a Paid Content Business Model?

Newspapers have been struggling not just due to the economy but also due to the availability of accessing the news for free on the internet. Newspapers have resisted the change, at times trying to restrict technological advances. One example is the battle newspapers have engaged with Google, claiming it's copyright for their articles to show up in search results.

While some newspapers have finally embraced the inevitable, the AP still seems to be dragging its feet. This week, they announced a cut in rates to newspapers and also a more aggressive stance on sites that are aggregating their news feeds without permission.

AP has two major problems with this strategy:

They're not the only news organization out there
They now have to compete with the average Joe who can blog, Twitter and update their Facebook statuses with live accounts of news events from earthquakes to wars to entertainment events

Sure, it can be frustrating for a business to have to adjust to changing times and come up with a new business model, but AP wouldn't be the first one to do so. Companies who wish to exist in any industry for the long haul must be prepared to adapt to new technologies and the winds of change.

What do YOU think of AP's aggressive strategy? Tell us how it is in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 7, 2009, 7:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Music's Re-Launched Artist PagesCompete with MySpace, iLike

Yahoo! Music has re-launched their Artist Pages with a focus on customization. The result is what appears to be an attempt to compete with MySpace and iLike.

While MySpace may be losing traction as a general social network to Facebook, it still retains its roots as a great marketing resource for recording artists, both signed and independent.

Unlike MySpace and Yahoo, iLike's focus is purely about music. However, their reach is thus far nowhere near that of MySpace or Yahoo!

Unfortunately, Yahoo! is off to a cluttered start. Their page is not user-friendly with ads and boxes running together. To be fair, most of the pages haven't been customized yet. But I would expect the basis from which to start to be a little cleaner. I understand the need to monetize these pages with ads, but if they're too frustrating to look at, profits won't come.

Here are screenshots comparing the pages of Yahoo! Music, iLike and MySpace for the band Addison Road:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 7, 2009, 7:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Amber Naslund of Radian6 on Social Media for the Little Guy

One of the sessions at SES New York that I had to attend was "Small Voices, Big Impact: Social Media for the Little Guy."

Why did I have to attend? Well, Amber Naslund, the Director of Community for Radian6, was on the panel and I was afraid that she'd spill the beans about how Radian6 gives you a complete platform to track millions of blogs, tweets, videos, and comments.

It's one of my "secret weapons."

But she was so intent on helping helping small companies with even smaller budgets freely tap the world of social media to improve their business and increase sales that she almost didn't mention what company she was from.

I should have been selfish and let her keep my "secret weapon" secret. But, when we got to Q&A I had to ask her about Radian6 -- because it's too good a product to keep under wraps.

We've been using it to track the surprising relationships between people who use blogs, video sharing sites (YouTube), photo sharing sites (Flickr) and microblogging sites (Twitter) as well as Social networking sites (Facebook). What continually amazes me is how frequently the person who Tweets this morning is blogging about the same topic this afternoon and then uploading a video about the subject tomorrow.

If you use different tools to track each of these social media, then you will often miss the connections.

To illustrate this point, I interviewed Naslund after the session, have embedded the video interview below and will Tweet about in a minute. Get it? Got it? Good.

Amber Naslund, Radian6, on the importance of social media for small businesses at SES New York

At Radian6, Naslund is responsible for client engagement, community building, and helping companies tap the potential of online reputation management, customer engagement, and social media monitoring. She's spent the last decade or so raising over $60m for non-profit organizations, building brands for companies large and small, and messing with all things online.

Naslund blogs at Altitude Branding, focusing on brand building and social media marketing for business. She's also an author of Radian6's PowerShift blog, where she's just posted a great story about Southwest Airlines, an old client of mine. And she is a contributor to the popular MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog, and she keeps her personal blog at Innacurate Reality.

Oh, and if you contact Naslund, you'll discover that she's is passionate about helping companies and customers build and share brands, together. Yes, yes. That's wonderful. But, ask her to give you a demo of Radian6. If you don't see the product, you'll be missing one of the marketing tools that should be in your social media toolkit.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 6, 2009, 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

FriendFeed Launches Real-Time Design in Beta

FriendFeed is previewing the new version of their site at http://beta.friendfeed.com. The big difference is that updates come in at real-time. You don't have to refresh the page.

If you're not familiar, FriendFeed is a social aggregator. It's a site where you can see updates from most of the major social networks. Get Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. updates all in one place. The great thing about FriendFeed is the ability to search user feeds for conversations about any given topic or brand.

Here's a video demonstrating the new interface:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 6, 2009, 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

T-Mobile Planning Home Phone, Tablet Powered by Android

Last year, T-Mobile became the first mobile carrier to offer a cell phone powered by Google's open source mobile platform, Android. The love affair between T-Mobile and Android must be serious because the carrier has big plans to expand Android to home devices for consumers.

According to documents obtained by the New York Times, T-Mobile is planning a home phone as well as a tablet that will both run Android. The home phone is expected early 2010 with the tablet following shortly thereafter.

So far, Android hasn't taken the mobile world by storm, but sometimes slow growth is the best growth, especially in this economy. With independent bloggers hacking up netbooks with Android, there is obvious desire to push the open source platform to its fullest potential.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 6, 2009, 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yahoo! Image Search Update Reminiscent of Visual Search Engines

Visual search engines such as Searchme and Viewzi provide searchers with a graphical preview of web sites, video, and images. In its image search update, Yahoo! appears to be taking a page from these visual search engines by offering a preview page when users click on an image.

Yahoo! says the update also includes the following three features:

A search box with search assistance to let you quickly and easily search for more images.
More image search results (so you don't have to hit the back button to see your other options).
Suggestions based on queries from other users making similar searches.

Here's are screenshots from the update. Let us know your reaction to the update in the comments!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 6, 2009, 6:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Think Microblogging is Hip? Try Nanoblogging!

With all the hype surrounding Twitter these days, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to outdo them and come out with an even faster and more efficient method of communciation.

Enter Flutter. Flutter claims to be a nanoblogging service. Like all good Web 2.0 companies, they launched out of a Stanford dorm room.

Ok, ok this is all a joke. But at the same time, it is a bit of commentary on the current state of social media. Even ABC News was asking last week if anyone is sick of social networking yet?

My personal answer is that people aren't necessarily sick of social networking as they are of all the "gaming" of social media systems. Who's the most popular Twitterer? How many friends do you have on Facebook? Those vain social status games are what I find tiring. What's not tiring is simply connecting and networking. After all, networking is as old as man. It simply adapts to the technology at hand.

What's your answer to ABC's question? Does social media warrant the hype? Leave your response in the comment section below.

In the meantime, enjoy this mockumentary about the fictional Flutter.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 5, 2009, 6:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

News Blogs Are Becoming the New Online Newspapers

Back in December 2007, I observed that "Blogs Are the New Trade Press." Today, it appears that news blogs are becoming the new online newspapers, too.

According to "The State of the News Media 2009," an annual report by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, "nearly one out of every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 is now gone, and 2009 may be the worst year yet."

It adds, "Perhaps least noticed yet most important, the audience migration to the Internet is now accelerating. The number of Americans who regularly go online for news, by one survey, jumped 19% in the last two years; in 2008 alone traffic to the top 50 news sites rose 27%."

In other words, people are still looking for news, "But audiences now consume news in new ways. They hunt and gather what they want when they want it, use search to comb among destinations and share what they find through a growing network of social media," reported the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

A Pew Research Center Survey in December 2008, found the number of Americans who said they got "most of their national and international news" online increased 67% in the last four years. The presidential election was almost certainly a key factor in the growth. More than a third of Americans said they got most of their campaign news from the Internet in 2008 -- triple the percentage in previous presidential election year.

Although the growth in online news consumption cut across age groups, the growth was fueled in particular by young people. Young voters and activists now rank the Internet as a news source of importance parallel to television, according to the Pew Research Center Survey.

The State of the News Media 2009 added, "And the video site YouTube also became a major delivery system for people to get news posted and recommended by friends and associates, and often from political campaigns. The Obama camp reported more than a billion minutes of campaign-produced material was downloaded from YouTube. And Youtube reported that the Obama campaign's 1800 web videos were viewed 100 million times in total."

According to Pew Research Center data, as of August 2008 the percentage of Americans who went online regularly for news (at least three times a week) was up 19% from two years earlier to nearly four in ten Americans (37%). No other medium was growing as quickly. Most saw audiences flat or declining.

The new numbers put the Web ahead of several other platforms for the first time. In the same August survey, 29% of Americans said they "regularly" watched network nightly news, 22% watched network morning shows and 13% Sunday morning shows.

The percentage of Americans, who relied on the Internet regularly, according to this data, was now roughly similar to that who regularly watched cable television for news (39%). More people still read a newspaper "yesterday" (34%) or listened to news radio (35%) than had viewed news online "yesterday" (29%). But the gap was narrowing.

Although the shift in audiences from print newspapers to online newspapers is "old news," Newsknife, which rates the top news sites at Google News, has just reported some "new news" that indicates of source gathering the news is also shifting.

According to an article posted yesterday, Newsknife noticed changes at Google News at the beginning of March that could affect traffic to news sites.

It appears to Newsknife that Google News has significantly increased its listing of blogs. "Compared with our previous findings there's now a real blogstorm," it reported.

Newsknife found 150 blog sites at Google News during March. "The growing number of blogs appearing at Google News seems to offer a simple success formula to news site owners: start blogs for your site and increase your chances of being listed at Google News," it advised.

Many news site owners started doing this a year ago. For example, Newsknife reported on March 1, 2008, a that blogs from the Washington Post, New York Times, Baltimore Sun, USA Today, and Los Angeles Times were starting to appear in Google News.

The topic of news business models for publishers in these changing times was addressed at SES New York last week. I moderated a panel that included (in aphapbetical order): Mark M. Edmiston, Managing Director of AdMedia Partners; Murray Gaylord, Vice President of Marketing and Customer Insights at NYTimes.com; Erik Matlick, CEO of Madison Logic; and Gill Torren, Associate Publisher of SC Magazine at Haymarket Media.

Following the session, Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Gaylord about the changing media landscape. Gaylord says The New York Times was aware of social media's impact back in the 1990's and has taken steps to integrate such developments into its brand making it the largest news site on the Web.

Gaylord added that NYTimes.com has more than 55 blogs and is integrating thousands of videos and related digital media into to its website, making the NY Times the most shared site on the Web. He went on to highlight a particular New York Times collaboration with Facebook, in advance of President Obama's inauguration.

S. Murray Gaylord, VP Marketing, New York Times, on social media's impact on publishing

What does this mean to readers of this Search Engine Marketing News Blog, which is also one of the more than 4,500 English-language news sources worldwide that have their headlines aggregated by Google News?

It means news search SEO is larger than press release optimization. It's larger than news article optimization. It includes blog post optimization.

And based on the latest Newsknife findings, it appears that news bloggers may be better at optimizaing their posts than traditional newspaper reporters. And this was happenening even before the economy collapsed.

What are the implications? The news industry has to reinvent itself sooner than it thought. And it has to do this at a time when economists are trying to draw the line between a recession and a depression.

In the meantime, marketers need to focus on the news blogs that are becoming the news online newspapers.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 3, 2009, 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Med Students to Provide Answers on Health Search Engine

Health search engine Healia will be getting some assistance from medical students to help answer questions in the community section of their site. The feature is a results of a partnership with the American Medical Student Association.

Between 75% and 80% of U.S. internet users have searched online for health information, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

If you've ever been in a health forum, you know that finding answers can get a little crazy. Oftentimes, it turns into a Worst Case Scenario portfolio.

Sites such as WebMD or MayoClinic.com provide good information, but if you have a nuanced question, they may not have what you're looking for.

It will be interesting to see if having med students on Healia can fill this gap in online health information. At the very least, it's great that tomorrow's doctors will experience how their patients approach health care online. Hopefully it can help them incorporate technology, internet, and even search into their practices.

Trulia Sees Strong Traffic Growth in Q1 2009

Recently, Trulia announced that they experienced record growth in February 2009. That success was a sign of a good first quarter in terms of traffic for the real estate search site.

Compared to the first quarter of 2008...

Visits increased by 40%
Property views increased by 50%
Page views increased by 63% across home listings, stats & trends and Trulia Voices
Trulia Voices community site membership increased by 61%
Questions asked increased by 160%

"This was by far our best quarter to date," said Pete Flint, Trulia CEO and co-founder. "Consumers were more engaged than ever and we believe there is pent up demand as prices have reached new lows. Everyone at Trulia is committed to providing consumers with innovative products and access to data and resources to help find the home of their dreams and to better understand the real estate values in their ideal neighborhoods as we spring into the open house season."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 3, 2009, 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Zillow Partners with 180 Newspapers for Co-Branded Real Estate Sites

Last September, real estate search site Zillow announced a newspaper consortium. This week Zillow is partnering with 180 newspapers to create co-branded real estate sites. The Tampa Tribune and 100 papers with Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. have launched. Papers such as the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Winston-Salem Journal are among those that will launch in the coming months.

"This next step of the Zillow Newspaper Consortium brings Zillow's unique local content and data to millions of online newspaper visitors searching for real estate information," said Lloyd Frink, Zillow president. "As our newspaper partners evolve and build out online content, we're excited to be a key part of the process."

Zillow has content for over 88 million homes in the United States, 3.3 million of which are for sale.

"The combination of Zillow's cutting-edge real estate technology with CNHI's deep community relationships will help us serve local readers and businesses in exciting new ways," said Donna Barrett, CEO of Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. "This relationship with Zillow will help cement our status as the deepest, richest source of local information in our markets."

Related Reading:
Zillow Launches Answers Feature
Zillow Unveils Automated Quote API
Zillow Launches Free Professional Directory

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 3, 2009, 6:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DiggBar Enables Easier Social Bookmarking, Sharing

Lately, we've seen the emergence of toolbar-esque social media features that enable sharing and social networking without having to install a toolbar or visit a complete site. Google Friend Connect's Social Bar enables social networking with a horizontal "bar" of social networking that web developers can place on their site. Facebook has a bar that runs along the bottom of the page while you're hanging out on their site.

Now, DiggBar comes along to make the Digg experience easier. Whenever you're on a site, you can simply type "digg.com/" in front of the URL to launch the DiggBar.

From there you can add comments, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc. or click the "Random" button to see a random Digg submission.

Of course, this is very reminiscent of StumbleUpon's toolbar, but it does make it easier to Digg. I expect we'll continue to see these social bars pop up on more and more sites.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 2, 2009, 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Google Shows Local Results for Non-Local Queries

Do a search for a broad keyword and you're likely to come across some local results in Google now. You don't even have to be signed into your Google account.

The local results appear along with a Google Map about mid-way down the page. It's hit or miss. I was able to produce the results for "golf" and "pizza" but not "coffee."

Must give props where props are do. Florist SEO Watch blogged about this over the weekend and was pointed out to Mike Blumenthal (where I learned of it) by Cathy Rhulloda.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 2, 2009, 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yahoo! Launches New Mobile Site and iPhone App

Yahoo! has unveiled a new mobile version of their site. It can be accessed at http://new.m.yahoo.com. Check it out, compared to the old version:

New

Old

Yahoo! has also released a mobile app for the iPhone. They previously have released Inquisitor as an iPhone app (of which yours truly is a big fan) as well as Yahoo! oneConnect as an app. Now, the new Yahoo! mobile app is basically their portal, app-style.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 2, 2009, 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Matthew Liu Discusses YouTube Insight and Sponsored Videos

At SES New York last week, one of the speakers at the conference session, "Video Search Engine Optimization: 2009 & Beyond," was Matthew Liu, the the lead product manager on YouTube Sponsored Videos. You may remember him from such hits as the "YouTube Sponsored Videos Overview."

Well, enough about the past. Liu spoke about some of YouTube's newest applications, including YouTube Insight and YouTube Sponsored Videos, at SES New York. For example, he discussed how Insight, an analytics tool, allows users and advertisers to learn more about their videos and how much traffic they are receiving.

Liu also discussed how you can use Sponsored Videos to promote your videos on YouTube. He said Sponsored Videos is like "AdWords" for Youtube.

And just like Matt Cutts of Google, who always draws a crowd after he speaks at a session, Liu also drew a crowd after he spoke last week. Check out the video interview below.

YouTube Product Manager Matthew Liu on YouTube's Insight and Sponsored Videos

As the lead product manager on YouTube Sponsored Videos, Liu focuses on building an advertising platform that allows video creators -- from the everyday user to a Fortune 500 advertiser -- to reach people who are interested in their content, products, or services, with relevant videos. Previously, Liu led numerous other projects at YouTube for advertising, content partnerships and rights management, and community engagement.

Liu has a MS in Management Science & Engineering and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 2, 2009, 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Suggest Goes International

Last August, Google set a search query suggestion feature as default on its homepage. But like many Google features, it was rolled out to the U.S. only.

Now, Google Suggest is going abroad. It's available to 155 domains in 51 languages.

Adjusting search suggestions for different languages and regions involves more than simply adding a feature. You have to understand locations and interest. For example, a search in the UK that begins with "liv" is probably headed for a query related to "Liverpool," while in the US it would be for one of the most vital organs in the human body.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 2, 2009, 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Twitter Tests Search-Centric Interface (We've Got Screenshots!)

Twitter is testing an interface that incorporates new search features. The interface is an attempt to keep it simple by using the original Twitter design. The test has been rolled out to a subset of people. I was pleasantly surprised to sign in and see my profile was getting the test page. Now I get to show you what's up!

First up, the search box is included on the sidebar. Previously, Twitter was testing a search box in the top right navbar. You'll also notice trends underneath the search box.

Next, the search results appear right there on the homepage, where you would normally see the Tweets from your Tweeps.

You can also save your search if you wish to return to it at a later date. When you do, it lists the search under the search box:

What do you think of the changes? Let us know in the comments!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 2, 2009, 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Read "The Truth About Search Engine Optimization" by Rebecca Lieb

Read, don't skim, "The Truth About Search Engine Optimization" by Rebecca Lieb. It's has just been published by FT Press and this book reveals 51 proven search engine optimization techniques and bite-siz, easy-to-use advice that gets results.

Okay, I should disclose that I've know Rebecca Lieb for years. She was the The ClickZ Network's editor-in-chief for over seven years, which is about as long as I've been doing SEO PR. But she now oversees the U.S. operations of Econsultancy, the leading source of independent advice and insight on digital marketing and e-commerce. So, I have no conflict of interest in plugging her book.

Lieb spoke at SES New York last week and Jamie O'Donnell, the co-founder of SEO-PR, interviewed her about the target audience for her new book. As she says in her introduction, "It's not a book for geeks. It will not teach you how to write code, or get you up to your elbows in programming. But whether you're a small webmaster or a chief marketing officer overseeing a search optimization initiative, you will learn tactics, strategies, and best practices for wrapping your arms around this whole search thing."

Rebecca also discusses her favorite takeaways from her new book. Of course, my favorite is Truth 22: "Using SEO PR as a link strategy."

Check out the interview below:

Rebecca Lieb, eConsultancy, on her new book about search engine optimization

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 2, 2009, 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Twouble with Twitter" - No, This Isn't an April Fools' Day Prank

I know it's April Fools' Day, but the video below actually was posted to Dailymotion a week ago. Which was about the time that Guy Kawasaki, the co-founder of Alltop.com, was giving his opening keynote at SES New York about "Twitter as a Tool for Social Media."

Since people are still Tweeting about Kawasaki's tips and tools, I figured that you might enjoy this as much as the Digg community seems to be, where it is called: "'Twouble with Twitter' - Hilarious Animation."

Twouble with Twitter
Uploaded by tux-planet

Twouble with Twitter

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 1, 2009, 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

4/1/09: We Won't Get Fooled Again (Puts On Sunglasses)

It's that time of year. April Fool's Day. What's news and what's fake? Here are the jokes for 4/1/09:

Live Search Hotspots

Which reminds me of this video from Qualcomm:

(This is an image, click to go to the page with the video - couldn't embed, sorry)

YouTube revealed a new layout, which made viewing Jeffrey Wooten's Punch List even more interesting than usual today.

Google CADIE (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity)

CADIE can even search your brain for that word that's on the tip of your tongue.

Gmail Autopilot

Yahoo introduced Ideological Search so you can stop thinking for yourself. Click Donkey if you sway blue and Elephant if you're a red head:

Reddit redesigns and looks suspiciously like another bookmarking site, I can't quite put my finger on it....

ThinkGeek launched a new line of products:

Meanwhile, CafePress launched Cafepress-o-pedia:

Pirate Bay has made peace with Warner Brothers:

Woot! has a special deal on shipping - it's just $1,000,000.00! (One day only!)

What April Fools Jokes have you seen today? Point us to the good ones in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 1, 2009, 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SES Speakers to Be Outfitted with Buzzword Shock Wristband

Was last week's SES New York just too filled with buzzwords? Was Guy Kawasaki's keynote too predictable? Did you feel that reading Lisa Barone's live blog coverage was the same as actually being there?

Those days are over.

From now on, if an SES speaker ever utters a buzzword, they will be shocked by this hi-tech wristband from ThinkGeek.

Buzzwords that trigger the wristband include:

integration
transparency
visibility
user intent
funnel
engagement
conversation
buzzword
tactics
collaboration
syncing
maturation
competency
paradigm
discovery
relationship
leveraging
globalization
optimization

What do YOU think of the buzzword shock wristband? Leave your comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 1, 2009, 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Is Your IT Department the Department of SEO Prevention?

Although I conducted this interview with Jill Whalen, the CEO of HighRankings, in February at SES London 2009, I've been saving it for April Fool's Day. Why? Because we talk about the IT Department, which is often called the Department of SEO Prevention in many organizations.

One of my tips to get the IT folks on board with that an SEO consultant recommends and your organization needs to make is to buy pizza for everyone who claims to be too busy to implement them. Check out some of the other practical advice that Whalen shares in what has become an ongoing mission of hers.

Jill Whalen, HighRankings, on building better relationships between marketing and IT

By the way, High Rankings is offering new intermediate-advanced 1/2 day SEO workshops on April 2 and 3, 2009, in Framingham, MA. One is on keyword research, another on SEO copywriting, a third on social media marketing, and the fourth is about web analytics.

If you tell Jill that you're from the IT Department, you could get a slice of pizza. Then again, this could be an April Fool's joke that I just made up and all you'll get is an in-depth website marketing workshop.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on April 1, 2009, 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft to Announce Third Quarter Results April 23, 2009

Microsoft has announced that it will release its third quarter earnings on Thursday April 23, 2009. (For many companies, it's time for first quarter earnings, but Microsoft's fiscal year begins in July instead of January.)

The earnings will be announced via conference call at 2:30pm PST on the 23rd. A live webcast of the call will be made available at the investor relations site which can be found here.

In January, Microsoft surprised Wall Street by releasing its 2nd quarter earnings several hours earlier than announced.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 1, 2009, 6:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google AdWords Brings Rich Media and Video Templates to Display Ad Builder

Last October, Google launched a display advertising builder in AdWords to help online advertisers create banner ads. Since then, the tool has received a few updates as well as the addition of various templates from time to time. For example, last week a coupon template was released.

This week, rich media and video templates are being added to the mix. Advertisers will be able to track interactions such as mouseover rates and use multiple destination URLs with these new templates.

Here's a video introducing the new templates:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 1, 2009, 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google News Expands Local Feature to UK, Canada, and India

In February 2008, Google News launched a feature that allowed users to view local news. The feature is a section of the Google News homepage. Users simply type in their zip code or city and get headlines from their area. The feature, like most Google products and updates, debuted to a US-only audience.

Now, users in the UK, Canada, and India are getting the local news feature for their respective Google News sites.

If you can't find the local section on your page, click the "Personalize this page" link in the top right corner. Select "Add local section" and you should be good to go.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on April 1, 2009, 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See More Posts From:

This Week | This Month