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April 30, 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)

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