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June 2009

Want Twitter publicity? Just enough so you won't go hungry?

If you are searching for a good current "real-time" example of how twitter can help publicize your cause celebre, look no further than the latest being tweeted out today by the likes of such "twitterers" as @wholefoods

@WholeFoods - tomorrow, July 1st, is the monthly Twitter for Food event - it would be great for you to join in again! http://tr.im/m1Pq

And what are your instructions once you click on the link?

Post this message to your twitter account on June 30th and July 1st:

#twitterforfood Skip a meal July 1st and fund local or global hunger relief. http://tr.im/m1Pq

Now imagine that. Skip one meal and donate to any one of the great organizations listed on the landing page featured.

Want a snapshot of how many people have so far been tweeting #twitterforfood?
And this is only page 6 of a Twitter search on #twitterfood.

@WholeFoods grabbed hold of this contest and tweeted it to their nearly 800,000 followers! But the idea for skipping a meal and donating money to an organization which serves the hungry came from Tim Blair.

Tim had this to say to me about using Twitter to promote a cause:

"This is a personal passion of mine, so I am absolutely thrilled with the response. I started it last month and plan to run it once a month until it is no longer getting traction. My plan was that it would grow over the next few months as word got out. Humanitarians and philanthropists are a large demographic on Twitter from my experience.

I run twitter accounts for people and have 6 of my own for different causes. I find that it is easy to connect with locals and with specific demographics if you know what you're doing. I have accounts in green, religious, personal security, books, social marketing and have been able to connect well with people - especially people at high levels in organizations.

Results for some of the promos I have done have been good. Nothing earth shattering yet, but certainly worth the effort and growing. I am definitely sold on the value of using Twitter for promotions and will continue to refine how it is done."

It will be interesting to see how much $$$ is indeed donated to food organizations from this Twitter campaign. But no one can deny the immediate impact Twitter can have to promote a cause or campaign.

Posted by Byron Gordon on June 30, 2009, 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook adding payment platform?

Chris Crum at WebProNews.com has pieced together some very interesting pieces of information regarding Facebook, a former Googler and a new payment system.

Facebook in May announced that it was testing a new payments system that would deal in real money, rather than virtual currencies that it had been using for any number of applications. This might work fine for Mafia Wars and other light games that Facebook has increasingly added, but if you were to want to move into, say, storefronts or product comparisons, you'd clearly want to be able to deal in real currency.

Enter announcement two: Facebook has hired an ex-Google Checkout director to develop these payment systems. Given Facebook's immense and growing popularity, its standing as place for sharing opinions and favorites, its open platform and an army of marketers desperate to monetize work on Facebook, it could wind up being an absolute perfect storm.

Imagine classified ads or, bigger yet, entire storefronts integrated directly into a social networking site a la A Small World - except instead of a half million very exclusive members considering five and six-digit purchases in between their social networking activities, it's 200 million+ people worldwide who could have their friends' opinions of a product just a click away from being able to purchase it.

Chris has screenshots and more details - worth checking out.

What do you think? Would you purchase or shop on Facebook? Would your customers?

Posted by Herndon Hasty on June 30, 2009, 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Amazon Cuts Rhode Island, Hawaii Affiliates; Is California Next?

We've been tracking the affiliate tax debacle involving Amazon and the state of North Carolina. Now, affiliates in more states are being affected.

Associates in Rhode Island and Hawaii are receiving emails notifying them of the cancellation of their affiliate accounts. Rhode Island passed a bill making affiliates consist of a physical location for web retailers, which forces them to pay sales tax in the state. Hawaii is considering a similar bill.

Blue Nile, a diamond company has also shut down its program to Rhode Island residents.

On the horizon is the state of California, another state considering an affililate tax bill, sometimes referred to as affiliate nexus.

New York was the first state to pass such a bill, which went into effect last summer. 200 affiliate programs were canceled for New York residents as a result.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 30, 2009, 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Penny Baldwin to Yahoo!; David Ebersman Named CFO of Facebook

This week, there are a couple of executive hirings in Silion Valley related to the search and social networking industries. First up, Penny Baldwin has been tapped as senior vice president, global integrated marketing and brand management for Yahoo! Is there any room left on her business card? That's quite a long title!

Previously, Baldwin served as Managing Partner of Young & Rubicam Brands, Y&R Advertising and Wunderman Direct Marketing.

"One of Yahoo!'s greatest assets is its brand," said Yahoo!'s chief marketing officer, Elisa Steele. "Our integrated, global approach is critical to our success and we have a deep business commitment to fulfill our promise to our users, customers and partners. Penny is uniquely qualified to lead the effort and her leadership, experiences, knowledge and skills are excellent additions to the Yahoo! marketing team."

Meanwhile, Facebook has selected David Ebersman as the social network's new chief financial officer. Ebersman was formerly the vice president and chief financial officer at Genentech.

"We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates," said Mark Zuckerberg. "We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech's CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook."

What do you think of these hirings? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 30, 2009, 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Enter the Search Engine Watch Awards by July 17, 2009

You only have a couple of weeks left to submit an entry to this year's Search Engine Watch Awards. The deadline is July 17, 2009.

The objective of the SEW Awards is to recognize excellence, as well as inspire innovation and encourage new ideas in search marketing. The SEW Awards will honor 14 outstanding search marketers, search engines and technology providers, as judged by a panel of industry experts and the Search Engine Watch editorial staff.

The categories are:
* Search Engine with Most Relevant Results
* Most Innovative New Search Engine
* Best Search Engine Ad Platform
* Technology Platform Search Marketers Can't Live Without
* Best SEM Technology Platform for SMBs
* Best Social Media Platform for Marketers
* Best Web Analytics Platform
* Most Innovative Use of Search Engine Optimization
* Most Innovative Paid Search Campaign
* Best Social Media Marketing Campaign
* Best Business-to-Business Search Marketing Campaign
* Best Use of Local Search
* Best Integration of Search with Other Media
* Most Effective Use of Web Analytics

And who are the judges? They are:
* Chris Boggs, Director, SEO, Rosetta
* Jessica Bowman, SEO Strategist and in-house SEO Expert, SEMinhouse.com
* Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting
* PJ Fusco, Natural Search Director, Netconcepts
* Bill Hunt, President, Back Azimuth Consulting
* Mark Jackson, SEW Expert & President/CEO, VIZION Interactive
* Ron Jones, President/CEO, Symetri Internet Marketing
* Cindy Krum, Chief Executive Officer, Rank-Mobile, LLC
* Sage Lewis, President, SageRock.com
* Melissa Mackey, Online Marketing Manager, Fluency Media
* John Marshall, SES Advisory Board & CTO, Market Motive
* Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank Online Marketing
* David Szetela, CEO, Clix Marketing
* Brian Ussery, Director of SEO, Search Discovery
* Matt Van Wagner, President, Find Me Faster

By the way, in case you think I'm sucking up to the judges by listing their names, my firm can't enter because SES is one of our clients. This wasn't in the rules a year ago, but now that it has, I am free to comment on the process and the outcome.

Entrants may submit nominations for multiple categories, but each submission must focus on the four key areas of consideration:

1. Overall approach and category relevance
2. Innovation in methodology and execution
3. Excellence in tactical execution
4. Achieving success goals

Submissions will be accepted through July 17, 2009. There is an application fee of $145 per entry. Up to four award finalists will be determined for each category. Finalists will be notified by July 27, 2009, and will receive 1-day passes (limit 3) to the SES San Jose sessions and Orion panels on the day the winner in their category is announced. Winners will be announced during Search Engine Strategies San Jose, August 10-14, 2009.

Submitting companies will be recognized at the event, as well as in the SES Magazine and on Search Engine Watch. I also plan to interview as many winners as possible for SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube.

Oh, there is one other thing you should know about the Search Engine Watch Awards. The winner of the 2000 SEW Award in the "Outstanding Search Service" category was a little known start-up named Google. And Google was also the winner in the "Most Webmaster Friendly" category, as well.

Not bad for a company that had just announced a $25 million round from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins a year earlier. Where are they now, I wonder?

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 30, 2009, 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AOL Canada Relaunches Homepage, Makes You Thirsty for Pepsi

AOL Canada has relaunched their homepage and in case you couldn't tell, Pepsi has bought some advertising (Click on image to enlarge):

The relaunch is based on the update of the AOL.com homepage in the U.S last fall. That relaunch has been good to AOL, with increases of 23% in unique visitors, 34% in total page views and 61% in total minutes consumed year over year, according to comScore's Media Matrix for May 2009.

"The launch of the new AOL Canada portal follows the tremendous successes we've experienced in both the U.S. and the UK, enabling exciting new opportunities for the Canadian market," said Edward Kwan, Senior Director of AOL Canada. "In terms of advertising, Platform-A Canada will now have the capability to expand its reach across more relevant and media-rich content and channels."

The new AOL.ca features the ability to check mail from a variety of providers (AOL, GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail) as well as the opportunity to update social networks including Facebook, Twitter, AOL-owned Bebo, and MySpace. AOL's popular instant messaging client, AIM, is also included.

"With today's Internet ever-expanding and consumers engaging in multiple social networking platforms, it is essential that their experience on the Web is both personalized and integrated," said Kwan.

Additional AOL.ca features include:

• Customized backgrounds with multiple new designs from which to choose;
• Ability to add any customized links to the homepage so users can more easily access their most frequently visited sites;
• Users can drag and drop to reorder channel navigation to suit personal preferences;
• Users can add RSS feeds and personalized categories to get content from their preferred external sites.

What do you think of the new AOL.ca? Share your first impressions in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 30, 2009, 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CareerBuilder Taps Bing API for New Candidate Search Tool

At the Society for Human Resource Management Conference, CareerBuilder announced a new recruiting tool built with the Bing API. It's called Applicant Explorer and it uses the API to integrate online results such as social networking sites, blogs, and corporate websites with CareerBuilder's results.

"One of our key goals with Bing is to simplify search and make it easier for people to find what they are looking for online; searching for the ideal job candidate is no exception," said Alessandro Catorcini, senior program manager, Bing. "By combining Bing functionality with the extensive CareerBuilder database, Applicant Explorer helps recruiters and employers customize their search criteria and dynamically sort through and display hundreds of data sources in one easy to use interface, cutting the manual search time substantially."

The idea was to streamline the candidate search process for human resources professionals. Instead of sifting through CareerBuilder results and then conducting the same search on a separate search engine, now recruiters can do it all in one place.

"With so many employers already utilizing the Internet to research candidates, Applicant Explorer was created to help employers do that necessary research in the most efficient and simple way possible - helping them go beyond the resume," said Greg Brass, director of profile search at CareerBuilder. "In addition, job seekers can benefit from the clearer picture employers can gather of their qualifications and background."

Applicant Explorer is free for those using CareerBuilder's resume database.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 30, 2009, 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Launches Adwords API v2009

Thanks to Thomas Bindl at Refined Labs for pointing out the launch of a new Adwords API - v2009. Seems they have created an entirely new API that offers some interesting new services.

* We've created new web services for managing campaign targeting options and campaign-level criteria.
* All web services share a consistent, data-centric interface with two operations: get and mutate.
* A secure authentication token replaces the login credentials required in v13 request headers.

The information about the new Google Adwords API can be found here.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 30, 2009, 5:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Testing Logo Sizes in Search Results?

Philip Lenssen over at Google Blogoscoped noticed a variance in the size of Google logos in the search results from browser to browser.

I did a little experimenting and noticed the same thing. On Firefox and Safari, the Google logo is proportionately smaller than on IE and Chrome for me. Check out the images below.

Anyone else seeing the same thing?

Firefox

Safari

Internet Explorer

Chrome

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 29, 2009, 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CSI, Simpsons Ad Rates Now Higher for Online than TV

For the first time in history, some television programming is demanding higher ad rates online than it is for tv. Popular shows such as CSI and Simpsons are among those seeing the higher ad rates at such sites as Hulu.com and TV.com, according to Bloomberg.

For a prime time ad, advertisers generally pay $20 - $40 per thousand viewers. But on Hulu.com, the Simpsons recently garnered $60 per thousand.

Advertisers are willing to shell out the dough because internet viewers are more committed to the shows, generally seeking them out instead of channel surfing.

Additionally, there is less advertising on the online version of the shows and viewers are more likely to remember the web ads.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 29, 2009, 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft, Publicis Form Ad Partnership; Is Sale of Razorfish Involved?

Microsoft and advertising agency Publicis have formed a advertising alliance, according to ClickZ. The partnership involves online advertising as well as a TV ad exchange. This could put a damper on Google's inititave to create a tv ad exchange. Google is also a partner with Publicis, with the companies having staff working out of each other's offices.

But another interesting tidbit of the Microsoft-Publicis partnership is breaking today. Rumor is that Razorfish, ad interactive advertising agency arm owned by Microsoft, is for sale. Razorfish was part of the $6 billion aQuantive acquisition in 2007. Microsoft has contacted Morgan Stanley to arrange the sale. The even bigger rumor is that Publicis is poised to buy.

This all comes on the heels of comments by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that traditional media is heading to its grave.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 29, 2009, 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Invites News Partners to Share Video

Google is inviting the more than 25,000 news sources that partner with them for Google News to share professional news videos to YouTube. They'll be able to host videos on YouTube for free once being approved as a YouTube Partner.

YouTube's news partners get featured placement on the YouTube news page and have opportunities to generate revenue via advertising, something traditional news organizations are struggling to do. But this program can generate a bigger audience for newspapers by sharing videos on a site that reaches millions.

The videos will also be visible through Google News. In May, Google News began adding YouTube videos to its results and homepage.

If you're a news organization that's interested in becoming a Google News partner, you can click here to apply. After approval, then you can apply for the YouTube partner program.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 29, 2009, 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Koogle: The Kosher Search Engine

There is now an Israeli search engine - Koogle, developed for Jewish searchers that keeps kosher - well it shuts down on the Sabbath.

USAToday reported: "In their mission statement, Koogle administrators said the site's goal is to "filter the appropriate information from different websites that are relevant to our target audience in a way that does not contradict the values of our traditional Jewish audience."

Posted by Frank Watson on June 28, 2009, 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Did Email Hacker Bring About Gov. Sanford's Fall?

Seems the emails from the Argentine mistress of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford were distributed by a hacker, or so Sanford's mistress claims according to a report by FoxNews.

The emails were obtained by The State - the South Carolina newspaper - in December, the Huffington Post reported. The State said they did not inially publish the emails as they could not authenticate them.

Sanford went missing last week and initial reports said he "had gone hiking" until he admitted thr affair a few days ago.

People are now calling for Sanford to resign, news reports are stating.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 28, 2009, 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Gmail Increases Attachment Size To Entice Signups?

Last weekend Gmail increased the size of allowable attachments from 20 MG to 25 MG. One has to wonder if this was done mainly to garner more people to sign up for Google email service since they suggest changing from any service that will not accept attachments of that size.

"With Gmail, you can send and receive messages up to 25 megabytes (MB) in size.
Please note that you may not be able to send larger attachments to contacts who use other email services with smaller attachment limits. If your attachment bounces, you should invite them to Gmail," the mail FAQ recommends.

Gmail is a dsitant third to Yhaoo Mail and Microsoft Mail/Hotmail, but by offering bigger attachments they can entice people to change. Given they monetize their email through ads inside the interface and that Google wants to monopolize as many aspects of the web this current move is a clever one.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 28, 2009, 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Will Jackson Record Visits Change Bartz Attitude To Entertainment Stories?

During the Yahoo stockholders meeting which included yodelers, Regis Phelbin and a statement from CEO Carol Bartz "If I see another Britney Spears thing, I'm gonna throw up.", Michael Jackson was driving a record number of visitors to the site.

Maybe the "fluff-o-metter" Bartz said she had in store for the redesign may be put on hold, following the 16.4 million uniques it got on Thursday for the Michael Jackson news.

The stockholders report can be heard here.

Bartz had some interesting comments to make during the meeting.

• It is unfair to Google to compare the two companies - yeah why tie Google to a shrinking company.
• She was there to get Yahoo's mojo back - guess cursing like a sailor and saying Britney Spears stories make her puke is some powerful mojo.
• Products like Yahoo 360 and GeoCities that they are shutting down are mere "space debris" - nice way to describe products her employees spent major effort to build and develop despite their lack of success.
• Yahoo's business in China and self censorship elicited her comment "Yahoo was not incorporated to fix China" and "You can't hold us as the bad boys forever."- but giving information on reporters that are then but in prison should be glossed over with time. Maybe she forgot about how people's corporate protests in the US eventually helped get apartheid abolished..

The last two annual shareholders meetings saw the stepdown of both CEOs at the time, Terry Semel in 2007 and Jerry Wang last year. Despite no major protests at this meeting, we will have to wait to see if Ms Bartz makes it to next year's shareholders meeting.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 27, 2009, 3:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Thought Michael Jackson Search Surge Was Malware Attack

Twitter may have broke the story, but the increase in search traffic at Google Thursday was first seen as a malware attack Google admitted.

The Google News site had to shut down briefly leaving a message that read: "We're sorry, but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now."

Yahoo saw a record number of unique visitors for a day with 16.4 million visitors. It was also their single most visited story in their history.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 27, 2009, 3:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Aaron Wall Calls Out Google For Allowing Scam Marketing On PPC

Aaron Wall, author and founder of the SEOBook website, called out Google today for accepting PPC ads promoting bogus Google money making schemes.

"Google gives webmasters this guideline "Your site's reputation can be affected by who you link to." Why shouldn't it apply to Google as well?

As long as Google has 30%+ profit margins they are making a BUSINESS DECISION to run these fraudulent ads. They could spend 1% of revenue on cleaning up this issue (if they wanted to), but they are making a choice not to. Hal Varian (a Google consultant and UC Berkeley microeconomics professor) has probably done the math, and the offers stay after repeated media exposure of the issue," Wall blogged.

Perhaps it is time for people to start adding Google to RipOffReports instead of just the companies that create the scam websites that run Google Adwords. It would be fun to see if Google dropped those listings while allowing competitors run malice stories that get well ranked.

I am sure there are tons of these sites that are getting bad press from RipOffReports and are well ranked as a warning to people - the reason Google refuses to drop any of the RoR listings - yet Google is allowing them to run ads to entice people to be swindled out of their money.

If it is a matter of money, perhaps Google could enlist the help of volunteers from their newly launched volunteer site. Afterall that site is called GoodForAll - something Google may not be doing in this case.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 27, 2009, 2:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

China Blocks Google, YouTube This Week, Could It Become Permanent

Seems the Chinese government used the "Great Firewall" to block Google, YouTube and Gmail for a couple of days this week, Fox News reported.

Seems access to Google both in English and Chinese was blocked for part of Wednesday and Thursday in parts of China. Fox News stated, "The outages occurred after China accused the Internet behemoth of spreading pornography among its citizens. Google was said to be investigating the service disruptions."

Given China has its own internal search engines and the government has strict control, Google has acknowledged it is censoring search results in the country.

Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang said Google China "is a company operating within China to provide Internet search services, and it should strictly abide by Chinese laws and regulations," Fox News reported.

As Britain's Telegraph reports, Google established the localized search engine Google.cn four years ago, agreeing to filter results based on government censorship restrictions and content requirements, but Chinese officials say that has not been the case due to its links with Google.com.

"Google China's website has not installed filters to block pornography in accordance with the laws and regulations of our nation," said the CIIRC - the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre, according to the U.K. Guardian. "A lot of overseas Internet pornographic information has spread into our nation by way of this website."

Given nearly half the world's population lives in China Google could be losing a major market which is just now starting to become an active consumer online. Google had said they would address China's requests but with the 60th anniversary of the Communisy regime coming, it seems they did not do it quickly enough.

TechCrunch asked commenters in one of their blog posts to help clarify what was happening in China and received information from "a person seemingly located in Xiamen, China" that , "says Google Books, Google Talk and Image Search have also been blocked in the comment section of this post. Other services like Blog Search, Translate, Maps and Analytics are reportedly borked as well. YouTube has been blocked in the country for quite some time already".

Posted by Frank Watson on June 27, 2009, 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

YouTube Gives New Look to Channels, Launches Trailers Page, and Sees Mobile Upload Increases

There's a bunch of news coming from YouTube in the past couple of days. First up, they're giving channels a makeover. Users can switch their channels over on their own now, but by July 15th all channels will be switched to the new look.

The University of Phoenix has already taken advantage of the new look. Check out their new channel design (click on the image for a larger view or visit the page here.)

The YouTube blog has nearly 50,000 comments on the matter and many of them are a variation of this:

It looks like YouTube may be facing Facebook's problems when it comes to changing things up. No sign yet from YouTube that they'll go back to the old channels.

Next up in YouTube news has launched a page for movie trailers.

I finally got a chance to see the trailer for The Time Traveler's Wife, which opens in August:

Last but absolutely not least, YouTube is seeing an increase in mobile uploads of videos. In the past six months, mobile uploads have increased by 1700%. Since just last Friday, the day of the iPhone 3G S release - the first iPhone with video, mobile uploads have increased by a whopping 400%.

What do you think of this YouTube news? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 26, 2009, 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

7 Google Updates for the Week Ending June 26, 2009

It's been another week of mega Google updates. Several have been noteworthy-enough to get their own post. The leftovers are included below:

Google Android has launched 1.5 NDK, Release 1.

Meanwhile, Google Android phones are being announced and rumored for multiple carriers.

Google Maps now offers a "What's Here?" feature if you right-click on a map. However, it only provides light tourism information in the left sidebar. It would be a much better feature if it showed restaurants, shopping, hotels, etc in the area you click on.

Google News is using Wikipedia as a source, according to the New York Times.

Google search added friends to individual Facebook results, according to Google Blogoscoped.

Kevin Marks leaves Google.

Mobile Gmail gets a swipe-to-archive feature and expanded English language support.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 26, 2009, 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Amazon Pulls the Plug on NC Associates while Google and Apple Enjoy Sweet State Tax Deals

This morning, Amazon Associates in North Carolina are awakening to some bitter news. As of today, their accounts are officially closed. This is anticipation - yes, anticipation, not the actual passage - of a state budget that includes a provision requiring companies with affiliate programs to pay an internet sales tax.

Just a week ago, Amazon sent a warning to NC affiliates that the accounts would be closed if the bill was passed.

The reasoning behind the provision is that affiliates are considered employees and therefore establish a physical presence in NC, which puts them in the "pay an internet sales tax" column.

But oh, if that was really the case. The General Assembly in NC has negotiated tax deals with big companies to lure them to the state. A few years back, Google was the recipient of such a tax deal when they decided to build a new data center in the western part of the state. Apple recently followed suit with a similar deal from the state. So, I guess those commissions on affiliate sales of 99 cent iTunes songs are safe, since Apple will soon have a physical location.

Since I live in North Carolina, I've been privy to efforts to stop the NC affiliate tax. I've watched people of varying political persuasions petition the General Assembly to stop the tax provision.

I've also seen comments on local sites where citizens say that companies with affiliates should pay taxes because other companies and citizens pay taxes. But that thinking is misguided. Affiliates are required to pay taxes on their earnings. The state of North Carolina essentially wants to raise taxes on affiliate sales with this new provision.

Of course, North Carolina politicians are really just shooting themselves in the foot. Many companies will follow Amazon's lead and simply stop their affiliate programs. Thousands of North Carolinians will lose their incomes and will provide less tax income to the state.

There's also a separate provision to tax downloaded music, books, and software, which affects all online businesses involved in those niches. I wonder if Apple's tax deal exempts them from that?

State politicians North Carolina has until July 1 to pass a state budget, and right now it looks like the affiliate tax will very much be included.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 26, 2009, 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Ballmer Sees Traditional Media As Dead Men Walking

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sees traditional media as a dying advertising medium and that digital content will be the cause of their demise within 10 years.

Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, Ballmer said the global advertising economy is moving to the digital space and that traditional media that does not move to the opportunities will be left behind, the UK Guardian reported.

"There won't be [only traditional] newspapers, magazines and TV programmes. There won't be [only] personal, social communications offline and separate. In 10 years it will all be online. Static content won't cut it in the future," he added.

"For media businesses to successfully evolve they must provide the right combination of context and relevance to make a compelling online proposition for consumers, according to Ballmer," the online newspaper reported.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 25, 2009, 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yahoo Redesign, Rebranding As "Your Home On The Web" A Call To The Homeless?

Yahoo plans on shaking things up with a new site redesign and a major rebranding effort. One suggested new tagline/motto is "Your Home On The Web". Guess Carol Bartz - the new CEO - sees us web users as homeless.

Okay that may not be a fair shot but it should have Yahoo thinking a little bit more about a tagline. Most people have their default browser pages set already and to push for grabbing a bigger share of them is a smart idea, but that tagline may not be the way to go.

To me Yahoo has always been a community portal. I have my homepage set to my gmail account as that is my preferred email and the first thing I do when logging online. However, I do go to Yahoo numerous times a day, but for more personal community activities. I have my fantasy leagues to monitor, an area that Yahoo dominates.

Being part of the search community and working in the space I also have to check what is happening with their SERPs. For that I start at the homepage and am occasionally sidetracked by the prominent news box with amusing stories - seems I rarely go there to grab breaking news. But hey when Jon and Kate are fighting, or some celebritard has done something goofy I may click through for a laugh.

Yahoo is a great portal aggregator - pity they cut down Yahoo Groups only to have them resurface. They lost thousands of regular users doing that one.

Yahoo used to be the fun site. Hey it started that way with its cool site listings way back two bubble burst ago. But now that the web is all business, the company is taking itself too seriously. And as a shareholder I appreciate the business perspective, but I think losing sight of what drove them traffic and held their users is a big mistake.

Why not try - Yahoo: Where The Fun Side Of The Web Lives? It may help to bring back that huge following they once had.

Get back to promoting sports, music, games and fun and the search opportunities will grow. Have the search box handy when I want to know sports stats or game cheats or even product information related to my pastimes that I follow in niched groups.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 25, 2009, 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Google Execs Italian Trial Postponed

The trial of Google executives charged in Italy over the publication of a video on YouTube where a handicapped child was beaten has been postponed, the BBC News reported.

"On trial are Google's senior vice president and chief legal Officer David Drummond, former chief financial officer George Reyes, senior product marketing manager Arvind Desikan, and global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer," BBC News noted.

This story first broke in February when charges were made. The video had been posted to YouTube prior to Google purchasing the company but were made because they had not been taken down.

Expecting all videos to be policed would in effect close YouTube and other video sites due to the sheer cost involved.

The trial is set to start in September.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 25, 2009, 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Twitter Growth Tapers Off in May 2009

It's been an explosive year of growth for Twitter, with celebrities and the media embracing the microblogging social network. Oprah featured Twitter on her show and crowned Ashton Kutcher the King of Twitter after he became the first person to gain 1 million followers.

But new Nielsen data shows that growth tapered off in the month of May, when traffic "only" grew by 7% over April.

Don't get out your Kleenex, though. Twitter's year-over-year growth was a whopping 1,448% year-over-year, growing from 1.2 million uniques in May 2008 to 18.2 million in May 2009.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 25, 2009, 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yahoo!'s Hot Jobs to Offer Performance-Based Recruitment Solution

Job search site HotJobs, which is owned by Yahoo!, has announced a new performance-based offering for recruiters. Human resources professionals will now be able to pay-per-candidate, similar to pay-per-click.

With the offering, recruiters buy credits, but are only charged when candidates click on a listing and apply for the job. If credits go unused, they can be shifted to another listing. Additionally, recruiters will be able to set criteria to filter out candidates that aren't right for the job.

The new offering is poised to not just save human resource departments money but also to streamline the recruiting process as well.

"Recruiters are being asked to find top talent using fewer resources than ever, and Yahoo!'s Pay Per Candidate model gives them the tools to increase the accountability of their listings," said Chris Merritt, vice president and general manager, Yahoo! HotJobs. "With recruiters facing resume overload in today's job market, the Pay Per Candidate solution will allow them to spend their time and budget on only the best candidates."

Advanced Medical Personnel Services has tested the program and like what they see.

"Pay Per Candidate not only saves me time, but money as well," said Kyle Carey, director of Internet Marketing, Advanced Medical Personnel Services, Inc. "Because of how I set up the product, my team spends its time reviewing only relevant resumes. I don't pay for resumes that don't meet my criteria, only those that meet our standards determined by our questionnaire."

HotJobs sees 16 million unique visitors a month via their site, the Yahoo! Network and the Yahoo! Newspaper Consortium. It's easy to see how this could make quite an impact on the human resources industry.

What do you think of the introduction of performance-based marketing to job search sites? Share your impressions in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 25, 2009, 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Launches AdSense for Mobile Applications into Beta

If you have a mobile phone where you can download apps, then you may have noticed that some of the apps have ads on them. Mobile application developers use them to make money. Sometimes developers make two versions of an app - a paid version with no ads or a free version with ads.

There are a handful of mobile app advertising providers (such as Admob), and now Google is getting into the game. They've launched AdSense for Mobile Applications into beta. Backgrounds, Sega, Shazam, and Urbanspoon were among those who tested the offering in the trial phase.

In the video below, Howard Steinberg, Director of Business Development at Urbanspoon talks about their mobile app and choosing to work with AdSense:

What do you think about AdSense for Mobile Applications? Are you a developer who will be checking it out? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 25, 2009, 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Video Search Site Truveo Relaunches: How to Leverage Your Brand

Truveo, the video search site acquired by AOL a few years back, has relaunched. Before we get into the details, let's be clear: Truveo is not a YouTube wannabe. Their focus is purely on indexing video around the web.

So, now that we have that settled, let's take a look at what's changed and then how you can incorporate this fast-growing site into your online marketing and PR efforts.

First up, here's the before and after:

Before

After

As you can see, they've made the focus on search quite obvious.

The results page is laid out in three columns. On the left hand side is a list of sites where results have been indexed. In the middle are the video results, with tabs to sort by popularity and other factors. There are suggestions for search refinement where applicable. On the right is a display ad box with a focus on a particular channel underneath.

But looking at the results, where is the opportunity for search marketers? There's the display ad box, but no sponsored listings.

Leveraging Truveo will instead involve public relations and viral marketing. Since many of the sites that Truveo indexes are news sites, earned media is key. Additionally, Truveo tracks popular videos shared via Twitter, so word of mouth and viral social media marketing can help with getting visibility on Truveo as well.

The nice thing about those strategies is that the ultimate visibility of successful marketing and PR campaigns will be widespread. Generally, you'll see a lift in other channels too, if you can manage to get a big media site to cover you. Think of the links - that will be natural! - and the effect they'll have on organic results!

But why would you focus such intent efforts on Truveo. You've never even heard of Truveo. Well, you, my friend are getting closer to being alone in that sentiment as the months roll by.

May was a huge month for Truveo, according to President Pete Kocks. He's hoping that the new site reflects the video search focus while resonating with internet users worldwide.

"With the launch of the new Truveo.com, we are showcasing the breadth of content discoverable in our search engine," said Pete Kocks, President of Truveo and Vice President of AOL. "With thousands of channels and TV shows in our index, Truveo has long been recognized as a leader in video search technology, and today we are building on that reputation with an improved experience that makes discovering and sharing video content even easier and more personalized."

That video content is highly popular in international locations. Because certain locales in Europe, the Middle East and South America have access to better bandwidth and because of the extent of Truveo's video indexing, the site is more easily consumed internationally.

As a result, it comes as no surprise that the relaunch comes with the announcement of two partners: Univision and Tiscali Italia. Both will leverage Truveo's API to deliver video search on their sites.

Speaking of the API, it fuels the video search on all of AOL's sites. Considering the extent to which Truveo indexes video content, third party developers would be wise to incorporate the API to provide a nice value add to any site.

Truveo also has an iPhone app as well as a site optimized for mobile web surfers. They're certainly on the ball and their increasing traffic is showing that they're offering something that internet users really want: comprehensive video search.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 25, 2009, 1:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

But Twitter is no Google

Twitter's real-time search capability has great appeal to anyone wanting to get the pulse of what people are actually tweeting about. Media entities are taking note; companies are using it to deliver fast customer service responses. But I'm still not using Twitter search for my news and information. When I search for news, I stick with Google (and starting to experiment with Bing).

Google generally finds what I'm looking for and I don't necessarily need "real-time" search results. I do want quality over quantity. Microsoft's Bing might give me more of what I want. But I'm still not motivated enough to start using Bing with any serious regularity. But what about Twitter? Twitter search seems destined to improve with new Twitter search tools coming out such as Twazzup, OneRiot and icerocket's twitter search engine. All of the apps seem to deliver similar search results when I used them but I like Twazzup's interface the best. You can easily see who tweeted, their profile stats, including number of followers.

Scoopler recently made its debut. It neatly splits your search results into two columns, the left showing real-time search results and the right column showing results from blogs and websites, including links to videos and images. You can "peek" at the story and share it via so many of the social media tools we've come to know and "love:" Facebook, Digg, Reddit, etc...Check it out!

I know I'm not the first Tweeter to remark that one of the most interesting uses of Twitter is the more unusual links tweeters post which you might not otherwise come across in a Google search. In that fashion, twitter search certainly adds social and news value. But as explained by Mark Jackson of Vizion Interactive in this informative video interview, Twitter's search functions can still be easily manipulated, making it very unreliable, not to mention the SPAM factor which Twitter is still not yet capable of combating effectively.

Twitter search does have a way to go if it wants to seriously compete with Google. But as we've seen with the coverage of the recent Iran election, Twitter has made a significant impact on the value of real-time search. And Google, along with a few other contenders, while playing catch-up, has time (and money) on its side.

Posted by Byron Gordon on June 24, 2009, 6:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

More Former Yahoo!'s Head to Microsoft; Weiner Upgrades to LinkedIn CEO

The reasons for Microsoft to still consider a deal with Yahoo! diminished even further this week as news broke that three former Yahoo!'s have been recruited to Microsoft. They aren't the first. You would think there was a fire sale on former Purple People.

Larry Heck, Scott Moore, Qi Lu, and Sean Suchter have all ended up at Microsoft after leaving behind their Yahoo! gigs.

Now, joining them, is Kevin Timmons; Yongdong Wang, former Yahoo VP of international search; and Knut Risvik, who incidentally spent time at Google after his stint at Yahoo!

Microsoft isn't the only place former Yahoo!'s are making their mark. Jeff Weiner joined LinkedIn last year as President, having left Yahoo! last summer and then hanging out at a couple of venture capital firms. Now, he's changing his title to CEO.

What do you think about the departed? Does Microsoft have any incentive to negotiate a deal with Yahoo? Leave a comment and let us know!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 24, 2009, 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bing's Best Match Spotlights Official Sites for Brands

If you conduct a search for a brand, you're most likely looking for the official site. Bing is separating the official sites out from the rest of the results for brands with a feature called Best Match.

Here's an example of a search for FIFA. Notice the search box included with the result plus deep links:

Best Match isn't perfect. It didn't recognize Caribou Coffee. Also, the "best match" for Keen was a psychic site, Keen.com. But what about Keen shoes? They were at the top of the organic results below. Perhaps there shouldn't be a "best match" for that keyword?

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

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 24, 2009, 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Free Google Webinar - 7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design - TODAY 10am PDT

FREE Google webinar on the 7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design led by SiteTuners.com CEO Tim Ash will be held on

Wednesday June 24th from 10:00-11:30am PDT (GMT-7).

Plenty of time will be included for audience questions.

For more information and to register please visit the webinar page.

Hope to see you all there!

Posted by Tim Ash on June 24, 2009, 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Your Data or Your Money: Is a Proposed Opt-In Privacy Bill Really Good for Consumers?

Congress is preparing an opt-in privacy bill for online advertisers, according to Peter Kafka. The effort is led by Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia.

This means publishers couldn't serve up behavioral ads unless getting permission first from the consumer. Right now, most consumers can opt-out, though most probably don't give it a thought as they browse the web.

Though details on the bill are vague, Kafka rightly points out that most advertisers and/or publishers could work around the new regulations by offering incentives to those who opt-in.

Another option would be offering an ad-free version of a site for a premium. It's no secret that many in the media world are hoping to push online publishing in that direction. From charging for online newspaper access to charging for Hulu, media execs are looking for non-advertising ways to fund their sites and networks.

They could sweeten the deal by making the opt-in process completely miserable. You'll probably have to hand over your email address and then get tons of junk email in order to access content for free. I already experience this for one local newspaper, but imagine if there were new regulations as an excuse!

If you think the web is a bit messy right now, just wait until you have to opt-in all the time. The intentions of the bill may be to protect the consumer, but it more likely will create ultimatums: agree to advertising, pay for content or miss out altogether.

That's just my opinion. What's yours? Sound off in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 24, 2009, 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

YouTube Gets a Slew of Updates Including Wonder Wheel, Improved Advanced Search

YouTube recently released a bunch of updates across the popular online video sharing site. Here they are:

Wonder Wheel - You may remember that Google added Wonder Wheel to search back in March. Now, for certain searches on YouTube, check the right hand side for the Wonder Wheel link. Here's what happens when you click on it for "keyboard cat"

Improved Advanced Search - YouTube says they've made advanced search easier to use, highlighting all the options available to searchers.

Upload Progress Bar Remaining Time - Users will get an estimation of how much time is left on the upload based on file size and internet bandwidth.

Download mp4s of Your Own Videos - This is especially helpful if you've lost your videos saved on your hard drive for whatever reason.

TV-Like Experience - When you're in full screen, the player controls are hidden so you can watch videos without distraction.

Mobile App Expanded to Six Languages - They are: French, UK English, Italian, Spanish, German and Dutch

What do you think of these YouTube updates? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 24, 2009, 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FTC Becoming Online Big Brother, Bloggers To Feel Wrath

Seems the Federal Trade Commission wants to become the regulator of the web. They have weighed in on behavioral targeting and is ready to set up rules. Now they are ready to start setting rules for bloggers - particularly payola blogs that get paid for reviews or recommendations of products.

The bloggers should have been aware of this coming as it has been discussed before. As the Associated Press reported they plan to monitor blogs for payments.

One has to wonder when they will look at copy written to attract Adsense. True, "many bloggers have accepted perks such as free laptops, trips to Europe, $500 gift cards or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post. Bloggers vary in how they disclose such freebies, if they do so at all." But more write content to make money through Adsense.

Self-regulation by bloggers is being recommended, but then again that is how the behavioral targeting people have been talking.

Sadly, yet realistically, both groups are not doing much to get these rules in place and the FTC is getting ready to actively step in. The FTC already bans deceptive and unfair business practices. and it seems they seek to expand those laws by including bloggers.

The BT people have to deal with the issue of privacy - something the web seems to ignore at times - but with targeting of ads by watching individuals' web activity this goes to an area that really make people uncomfortable.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 24, 2009, 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Social Media Show Big Search Jumps, Google Drops For May

The comScore's monthly numbers show a drop in growth for Google, Yahoo and MSN, yet an increase for social sites Facebook and Craigslist over last month was noted. Google's numbers fell to 65% of search share - a 2% drop from last month - while Craigslist gained 12 percent.

comScore Expanded Search Query Report May 2009 vs. April 2009 Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Expanded Search Entity	Search Queries (MM)
	Apr-09	May-09	Percent Change May-09 vs. Apr-09
Total Expanded Search	22,067	21,818	-1%
Google Sites	13,041	13,035	0%
Google	9,830	9,680	-2%
YouTube/All Other	3,211	3,355	4%
Yahoo! Sites	3,161	3,021	-4%
Yahoo!	3,135	2,995	-4%
All Other	26	26	0%
Microsoft Sites*	1,250	1,194	-4%
MSN-Windows Live	1,158	1,103	-5%
Microsoft/All Other	92	91	-1%
AOL LLC	795	721	-9%
AOL Search Network	427	374	-12%
MapQuest/All Other	368	347	-6%
Ask Network	705	691	-2%
Ask.com	402	382	-5%
MyWebSearch.com/ All Other	303	309	2%
craigslist, inc.	583	651	12%
Fox Interactive Media	666	644	-3%
MySpace Sites	658	636	-3%
All Other	8	8	0%
eBay	654	634	-3%
Amazon Sites	188	185	-2%
Facebook.com	176	184	5%

Posted by Frank Watson on June 23, 2009, 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Twitter's Monetization Plans, Plus Stream Sorting in the Works

It's one of social media's favorite topics: How will Twitter make money? This week brings news of two possibilities that many have speculated: Shopping and Corporate Verified Accounts.

Twitter is already like the mall, or at least an airport concourse with companies such as Starbucks, Dell, Dunkin' Donuts, Jet Blue and Southwest Airlines tweeting away. It's rumored that Dell has made millions sending out Tweets about deals and sales.

And while companies are increasingly keeping track of their brand in things like Tweets and Facebook updates, wouldn't it be nice to have technology that could serve up an ad or even the ability to directly purchase from Twitter when someone asks "Should I get one of the new Acer Timelines coming out?" or "Are Keen shoes any good?"

Of course, the reason people are even asking that on Twitter is because they're not always satisfied with search results. Plus, they're more likely to trust their network than computer-generated links.

Speaking of which, not everyone in a person's network is alike. On that note, Twitter plans to give users the ability to sort their streams. You could lump celebrities into one group, co-workers into another and Spymasters into another one (yes, I'm addicted). Twitter application TweetDeck already offers groups so it will be interesting to see if Twitter simply acquires them like it did with Summize, which provided search.

So that's your (almost) daily dose of Twitter news. What do you think of the monetization and stream sorting plans? Share your thoughts the old fashioned way by leaving a comment below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 23, 2009, 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yahoo! Search Updates: SearchMonkey Enables More Enhanced Results, Google Base Accepted

Yahoo! has released a couple of updates to extend enhanced search results. A new SearchMonkey update that enables even more enhanced results. You may remember back in March that a similar update enabled embedded rich media and documents in Yahoo! search results. Not every search would show them, but for web developers, adding a code snippet could be worth the added attraction in results.

Now, the enhancement is being expanded. Product pages, local information, events, news, and discussions can potentially be seen in the results per SearchMonkey code.

The Yahoo! Search blog gave an example of a Systore.com result for a video game:

Additionally, Yahoo! search will now accept Google Base, a product publishing tool. Five Google Base items will now be supported: Event, Product, Review, Job, and Personals. Those who have Event and Product information can submit their feeds to Yahoo! Site explorer to get their enhanced results automatically displayed.

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

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 23, 2009, 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Semanti Firefox Add-on Aims to Reduce Keyword Refinement, Provide Better Results

If you're like most searchers, you find yourself refining your searches until you find what you're looking for. But if Bruce Johnson from Semanti has his way, you'll start getting the results you want from your first search.

Johnson is the CEO of Semanti, a San Francisco-based semantic search company. Today, Semanti is officially launching their brand new Firefox add-on. The add-on uses an 8 million term ontology to aid searchers with their keywords and phrases.

Semanti can figure out that when you type in fuel economy, that other terms such as mpg are relevant to your search as well. No need to go back to your original search to add on that second term in the hopes of finding new results.

When installed, you can use Facebook Connect to sign in. Then, Semanti will provide query suggestions for Google, Yahoo, and Bing. When the results page comes up, you'll see the Semanti results above the search engine's organic results. You can collapse the results if you wish.

Semanti ultimately relies on social search, hence the Facebook Connect. Johnson says that the sites that your social network visits are more likely to be relevant to you than the ones generated by a generic algorithm. Additionally, Johnson believes the "wisdom of the crowds" can fuel better search.

In order for that to happen, your network will need to actively be using and bookmarking Semanti. Of course, that's the big challenge in search - getting people to form new habits with new search engines. Johnson says that's why Semanti was developed as an add-on. You don't have to use a new search engine. You just use your default engine and then use the Semanti to bookmark.

Because of the social aspect, it takes a while for Semanti to work. Johnson and team may need to rework this since most people want their search to work out of the box. But to get an idea of what Semanti is like in all its glory, check out this video:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 23, 2009, 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Author Search Enabled on Google News

If you have a favorite journalist, you can now search their name on Google News. There are three ways you can do this:

1. Type in "author:" followed by the name.

2. Use the Advanced Search option in Google News.

3. Click the link associated with a name featured in Google News search results.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 23, 2009, 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

SES Toronto 2009 Gets Rave Reviews from Attendees

We conducted more than half a dozen video interviews with attendees at SES Toronto 2009 -- to get feedback on the conference. Basically, the event got rave reviews with comments ranging from "excellent" to "bloody fantastic."

A couple of attendees mentioned the Monday keynote by Tara Hunt, author of The
Whuffie Factor. The Tuesday keynote by Emanuel Rosen, author of The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited, was also mentioned.

A couple of attendees mentioned the "Canadian focus" of the conference or the new information on the "Canadian landscape."

Also mentioned were the session, Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions.

Each of the video interviews runs from 14 to 56 seconds long, so check them out below.

Debbie Wheeler on SES Toronto

Nick Eng on SES Toronto

Michelle Agudera, Microsoft on attending SES Toronto 2009

Estee Langis, Yellow Pages Group, on attending SES Toronto

Susan Hurell, Modern Earth Web Design and BinaryCanary on SES Toronto

Helen Faber, WebFuel, on SES Toronto

Cecilia Tamez, XE.com on attending SES Toronto 2009

So, congratulations to Andrew Goodman, the SES Advisory Board and SearchEngineWatch.com, who organized and programmed SES Toronto 2009. Based on the feedback, it appears that the keynoters and mix of sessions in the Nuts & Bolts, Corporateville and Geek Tracks appealed to both first time attendees and SES veterans.

Hey, I couldn't make this stuff up. Oh, and check out the crowd at the bing booth at SES Toronto 2009. Yes, with close to 1,200 attendees, the exhibitors were happy, too.

Crowds at the bing exhibitor booth at SES Toronto 2009

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 22, 2009, 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Launches Volunteer Search Site

If you're looking to give back to your community or volunteer for a charity, a new site from Google can help you find the right opportunity. It's called AllforGood.org and it's a volunteer search site.

When you visit the site, it detects your location via your IP address. The results will return opportunities from a variety of organizations.

The site was built on 20% time with App Engine and Google Base. An API is also provided for third party developers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 22, 2009, 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Analytics Rearranges the Living Room

Google Analytics has been moving things around, giving parts of the site a new feel. But don't get used to the way things are now. Analytics is using Website Optimizer to, um, optimize their site. And that means things can continue to change.

But like a good search marketer, the Analytics team isn't testing everything all at once. Instead, they're taking it a step at a time. Their focus right now is on the education and professional resources. Google realized that few people were using the search box to find these resources and figured that perhaps people didn't know about them. (Can't search for what you don't know about!)

So, the analytics team created new sections for them. Here's what to look for:

The Product section has been updated to help users better understand Google's web metrics offerings including Analytics and Website Optimizer.

The Support section highlights online communities as well as authorized consultants.

The Education section enables users to develop their skills, watch videos, find out about seminars and take the Google Analytics IQ online course and test.

What do you think about the updates to the Google Analytics site? Leave a comment and tell us!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 22, 2009, 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Display Ads, Social Media Marketing Grow Despite Obstacles

When the economy started going south, many expected mediums such as paid search to be the winners - if there were any - in the advertising industry. Being able to track conversions would be crucial in an uncertain economy. But two new data releases are showing that display ads and social media are weathering the storm.

First up, display advertising for consumer goods is up 57% since 2007, according to Nielsen Online. YouTube and AOL.com are experiencing some of the greatest growth at 572% and 179% from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009 respectively.

While display ads typically don't convert as well as paid search on their own, we know that display ads combined with paid search perform better than either one as a silo.

Next up is social media. Results from a new Sapient study reveal that 65% of marketers say it's easier to secure funds for a new media/social media campaign than it was a year ago due to the economy.

However, there are reservations. 77% expressed concern over the performance at least one of their social media campaigns. Still, only 6% said that they would cut social media dollars if they had to in just one area.

Clearly, social media is at play, but marketers are still trying to figure out how to best leverage the medium. Considering that social media, more than most forms of advertising, relies on the actions of consumers to deliver the creative, it's easy to see why marketers are having trouble taming the beast. On the flip side, considering social networking is so hot right now, it's easy to see why they still want to play.

What are your thoughts on these data sets? Share your reaction in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 22, 2009, 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo Launches Display Ad Marketplace

Yahoo today launched the pilot launch of Yahoo My Display Ads, a self-serve display ad marketplace for ads on Yahoo sites and partner sites.

The ad customization part of the program is being powered by Seattle-based technology provider AdReady. The ad inventory is managed by Yahoo's Right Media exchange, and includes both Yahoo sites and partner network sites.

Advertisers can create and customize campaigns using more than 800 display templates, choosing either CPM-based (cost-per-thousand impressions) or CPC-based (cost-per-click) pricing. Ads will be targetable by geography, channel or audience demographics.

Yahoo My Display Ads is an extension of a limited program Yahoo and AdReady offered to a number of managed Yahoo Small Business customers last year.

"This new solution provides an affordable and accessible option for businesses to run brand and performance campaigns that reach the local audiences that matter to them most," Joanne Bradford, senior VP of North America revenue and market development at Yahoo, said in a statement.

Yahoo, like Google before it, is looking to convert some of its search ad business to the more lucrative display ads. Yahoo has offered display ads across its network since its inception, but the ability to create ads from templates should make it easier for smaller businesses to get into the display ad market.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on June 22, 2009, 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The Revolution Is Only A Twit Away

The election protests in Iran have become a revolt for freedom fueled by the support garnered through social media - Twitter in particular. Seems the government and the clerics of Iran do not realize what the Chinese have grasped - the social media are dangerous - they foster freedom.

Twitter, once again has shown out to be a powerful tool in the dissemination of information. First we have seen how it has helped with sharing of information of natural disasters and fast breaking news. Now it is gaining more publicity for its ability to unite the world in support of a movement.

The pictures and videos coming out of a country that has arrested 24 journalists so far have been transmitted largely through Twitter. YouTube has helped with the videos of innocents killed.

The mainstream media are looking for ways around the restrictions and Twitter seems to be their main tool.

As CNN reported the use of smart phones has become the magic sword. "The phone is the seminal device on the ground in Iran," Clay Shirky noted on the show. The journalists in this situation are no longer about degrees on the wall but measured by what they hear and what they see.

Shirkey has been touting the power of Twitter and social media for some time as can be seen in this video at TED.

The global protest has developed some interesting methods of support. The greening of twitter avatars is similar to the blackout of avatars used to draw attention to censorship issues in New Zealand.

Sites have sprung up with images and songs of support. A forum - Anonymous Iran - giving help to the protesters with the tagline "Even if a ballot is silenced, the voice behind it cannot be" is giving a portal for information to the people inside and outside the country. It is interestiungly part of a larger protest portal Why We Protest.

The power of Twitter is growing and no doubt its value as a far reaching tool beyond what it initially was developed for is becoming more obvious. While China saw the risk of its influence and fought against it with the Great Firewall - if the Iran freedom rally is successful Twitter will become a powerful medium and the 140 character revolution will become part of the mythology of the web.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 22, 2009, 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Toolbar Gets an Update and Made Available for Firefox

Yahoo! this week released an update to their browser toolbar. Previously only available for Internet Explorer, the toolbar is now ready for the Firefox browser as well.

Additionally, here are the updates you can expect:

Faster search - utilizes technology from Inquisitor to provide search suggestions, recalls sites from search history, and searching sites like Flickr and Wikipedia directly from the toolbar search box.

Site Preview - works in the IE toolbar. For certain site apps that you can add to the toolbar, displays a preview of the site or info without having to load the site. For example, if you have the movie showtimes app selected for your toolbar, you can click the arrow next the clapboard icon and a preview box will drop down. Other apps that use the preview are Yahoo! Mail and eBay.

Image via Yahoo! Anecdotal blog

What do you think of the new Yahoo! toolbar? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 21, 2009, 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

7 Google Updates Including Flash Indexing, Custom Search, and AdSense

Another week, another slew of Google Updates. Chew on these new features while you watch the US Open this weekend:

Google Flash Indexing - The googlebot will now index external content sources used in SWF files.

Google Webmaster Central - Reconsideration requests now come with notifications so you'll know where you're at in the process.

Custom Search Automatic Transilteration - You can type in one language but see results in another.

Google AdSense - Change the font size for your ad display units.

Google Maps and Transit - 7 new agencies have been added including

• Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Houston, TX


• VIA Metropolitan Transit in San Antonio, TX


• Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, UT


• Metro St. Louis, St Louis, MO


• Foothill Transit, San Gabriel Valley, CA


• Riverside Transit, Riverside, CA


• Charlotte Area Transit System, Charlotte, NC


• Pinella Suncoast Transit Authority, St. Petersburg, FL

Google Book Search - Got a makeover, including embedded links, book search within each book, thumbnail view, content drop-down menu, plain text mode, page turn button and animation, and an updated book overview page.

A microblogging search engine may be coming soon to Google, according to the unofficial Google Operating System blog. This would compete with Twitter search as well as Facebook's new search tests.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 19, 2009, 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's Electric: The Tale of CitySquares' Hairy Beginnings

One morning, Ben Saren was halfway through shaving his head with his electric razor when a schock from the mini appliance left him in need of a barber. Obviously, he wanted the nearest barbershop he could find near his Davis Square home in Somerville, Massachussets, a city just north of Boston. But searching the web at the time turned up fruitless. So, he did what any man in his predicament would dread doing - leaving the house half-hairy, half-bald in search of a barber at 8am.

It wasn't just barbershops that Saren was in search of. It was, well, just about everything. Where's a good local pizza place? Where's a Mom and Pop hardware store? Where was anything in Davis Square and not 10 miles away?

Saren set out to start a bare-bones site of Davis Square businesses. Think Craig's List for local, independent restaurants, shopping, and services.

But he realized he wasn't alone. Residents of nearby Boston-area neighborhoods were in search of the same things (though possibly not always for the same, half-bald reasons).

Thus, CitySquares was born.

Saren felt lucky that the domain name was available. And he should. The name evokes the very concept of Saren's site: Find out what's available in your neighborhood. It's the online version of your local community.

Another stroke of luck has been timing. Just as local search and online communities have begun to take hold, CitySquares started expanded nationally last year. The expansion, which was just completed in early March, came on the heels of being named the fastest growing search site last summer by comScore.

But don't expect to find hockey stick traffic data for CitySquares. Slow and steady is the approach for the hyperlocal site. Their approach to national expansion was to roll out from region to region.

And while Saren got up at 6:30am to get his hands on the latest iPhone released today, he wants to make sure he's got solid data and an innovative concept before launching CitySquares mobile apps.

That doesn't mean CitySquares is in a holding pattern. They have plans to use tools like Facebook connect to enable easier login and sharing of CitySquares content. Saren also envisions opportunities for users to post community information such as school lunches and trash pickup schedules.

While the search industry has oftentimes struggled what to do with the "local search niche," Saren has a clear vision for CitySquares and it seems to be paying off. In May, there were 2 million unique visitors. Not bad for a site, which less than a year ago, was just serving the New England area.

Saren isn't simply following a trend or trying to game market potential. He genuinely seeks to solve local search problems and unify communities online. Companies who keep their eye on their customer instead of the competition seem to be the most likely to thrive. That makes CitySquares one heck of a site to watch.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 19, 2009, 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Persian Translation Features Launch on Facebook, Google

If you've been following the events surrounding the election in Iran, you know that sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been crucial in demonstrating what is going on in the country. The government has been trying to stifle protests, but the citizens - and media - are determined to tell the story.

But, if you're not fluent in Persian, also known as Farsi, you might have problems reading those Tweets or Facebook updates. Now, you'll have a little help.

In reponse to the current election crisis in Iran, Google and Facebook have (separately) released Persian (also known as Farsi) translation features.

Facebook has launched a version of their social network in Persian. If you're using a Persian browser (you're probably not reading this post), it should launch automatically. Otherwise, go to your settings and select Persian from the Language tab.

Google has added Persian to Google Translate. They're pushing it out early due to the events in Iran. It's optimized for translation with English, and even then it may have a few glitches.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 19, 2009, 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Offers.com Takes Effort Out Of Searching For Deals

Steve Schaffer, CEO of Vertive, announced his company is launching a new look for Offers.com - the site that takes the work out of finding deals.

Speaking at Affiliate Convention in Denver Schaffer announced the launch of the redesigned site. Using feedback from its users, the site was built to make it easier for visitors to find the deals they want.

Coupon codes, promos, money saving offers are categorized for easy access. "It's really all of the best offers," Schaffer said. They have done the searching for anyone looking to get a better deal on thousands of products.

Hey I will have this one bookmarked because I always do a search for coupon codes when buying things online. Thanks for the effort.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 18, 2009, 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Privacy Roundup: Google Street View, French Law, and Congressional Hearings

Privacy concerns are ever-present, but the past week has generated significant buzz on the matter.

First up, Google has been asked by a the European Article 29 Working Party to keep "unblurred" photos for Street View for as little time as possible. The conundrum is this. Google sends its cars out to photograph countries. They use technology to blur things like license plates. However, sometimes the tech goes awry and blurs things that don't need blurring. When Google finds out about it, they use the original, unblurred photo to correct and then add it back into the system. Clearly, that raises a privacy issue. Google says it's working with the Article 29 Working Party to determine the amount of time they should keep the photos, but no solid timeframe has been given yet.

Speaking of Europe, France is putting the pressure on social networking sites like Facebook when it comes to privacy issues. The matter at hand is the trend towards being "open" so that third-party developers can build applications using APIs. French politicians are concerned about these third parties gaining access to private information. There are two things the politicians should consider. One is that most APIs are restrictive. In other words, you don't get access to all of a social network's functionality just because there's an API. Secondly, most of the networks provide an option for users to opt-out of their information being shared.

Last but not least, the United States Congress is having yet another round of hearings on web advertising and privacy. Yahoo! Vice President of Policy and Head of Privacy Anne Toth today testified at the House Energy & Commerce Committee subcommittee's "Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices and Consumer Expectations." Toth explained the benefits of relevant advertising but also touted the Yahoo! Privacy Center.

Google Deputy General Counsel Nicole Wong also appeared at the hearing. Wong spoke about Google's recent launch of interest-based advertising. The benefits of relevancy of the ads was a talking point for Wong, as well.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 18, 2009, 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Analytics Goals Can Now Be Imported Into AdWords

If you're tired of going back and forth between AdWords and Analytics to track conversions and goals (or tired of setting up a separate tracking code to integrate), then you're in luck. Now, you can import your Google Analytics Goals into your AdWords account.

As a result, you can also integrate your Analytics Goals with Conversion Optimizer. If you're not aware, Conversion Optimizer is a conversion tracking tool. You need to have at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days to use it. The tool recently opened up from its closed beta in January to extend to all eligible AdWords advertisers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 18, 2009, 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New NC Tax Law Would Use Affiliate Programs to Define Physical Presence, Collect Sales Tax

North Carolina is following closely in the footsteps of the state of New York in desiring to collect an internet sales tax. If passed, a new tax provision would use the affiliate status of residents to classify businesses as having a physical presence in the state, therefore requiring the retailers to pay a sales tax.

According to NetChoice, an internet advocacy group, when New York enacted their tax law, over 200 retailers simply stopped their affiliate programs to the state. Amazon.com has already emailed its affiliates warning that their accounts will be terminated if the law goes into effect. This could occur as soon as two weeks.

The irony of course is that affiliates are required to pay taxes on their earnings, so the net effect could potentially be negative for the state.

In a double-whammy for retailers like Amazon, a separate tax provision would tax internet downloads such as music, books, and computer software. It's difficult to imagine voters would be thrilled to pay more than their neighbors in Virginia and South Carolina for things like songs on iTunes.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 18, 2009, 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft, NBC Universal to Sell Addressable TV Ads

Microsoft today announced that NBC Universal will be the first media partner for its digital TV advertising marketplace, Admira. The technology, which Microsoft gained with its acquisition of Navic a year ago, uses real-time audience measurement data to optimize the delivery and placement of television advertising.

This "addressable advertising" platform brings many of the advantages of online advertising to offline media, including better targeting and tracking capabilities.

For larger advertisers, Admira will provide new planning tools for NBCU to offer advertisers, including data-driven targeting and segmenting of specific audiences across its broadcast and cable television networks. For small to midsize clients, Admira will enable an automated planning, buying, posting and billing process across many of NBCU's national broadcast and select local TV properties.

"Admira can help clients efficiently plan, buy and engage specific audience segments across the breadth of our broadcast and cable properties, enhancing the close relationships we have with all of our agency and client partners," Mike Pilot, president of sales and marketing at NBC Universal, said in a statement.

Admira aggregates viewer data from multiple satellite and cable TV systems, then overlays that with geographic and demographic data to determine which ads to serve. In addition, Admira continuously optimizes ad placements in response to near-real-time viewership data. As a result, advertisers and agencies can buy just the audiences they're targeted, which may not have been reachable in the past without wading through piles of untargeted TV viewers.

NBC Local Media began testing the Admira system in March with inventory from L.A.'s Universal Sports Network digital channel and added inventory from KNBC, the NBC owned-and-operated station in Los Angeles.

VivaKi, the Publicis Groupe operation that encompasses Starcom MediaVest Group, Zenith Optimedia and Digitas, will be among the first agencies to use Admira to help its clients plan and buy media when Admira rolls out later this year.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on June 18, 2009, 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Searching Twitter: TweetScan Offers History, CrowdEye Launches

Searching Twitter is becoming increasingly popular (you can tell by the amount of spam seen in the trending topics). So, it comes as no surprise that applications are being built and expanded to leverage Twitter search.

TweetScan was one of the first applications to incorporate Twitter search and now they've expanded to include historical Tweets. You can now search a database of 220,660,667 messages from Twitter back to November 2007 (as well as 1,627,559 from microblogging network identi.ca). It's not free, though. It will cost you $20 a year. Hey, they gotta pay for the database somehow, right?

Next up is a new kid on the scene. Launching this week is CrowdEye. Their modus operandi is to examine how popular topics have developed over time. The results include a visual graph showing the number of Tweets over time, popular links on a given topic, and, of course, actual Tweets. Check out this result for "iphone" -

What do you think of these Twitter search apps? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 18, 2009, 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

AT&T Plans a Mashup of Yellow Pages and Social Networking for the Under-30 Set

Yellow Pages are a great source of income for AT&T - $1.3 billion in the first quarter of the year, to be exact. But according to Forbes, AT&T is planning a new kind of Yellow Pages designed specifically for a younger demographic.

It's no surprise really. The under-30 set probably didn't grow up using Yellow Pages. They're more familiar with "looking it up on the internet." They're also very familiar with social networking sites like Facebook.

As a result, social networking is going to be a component of the new Yellow Pages. They will be developed for web and mobile - including apps for Google Android devices (despite the fact that AT&T currently has no device with Android) and iPhone - arguably one of AT&T's best sellers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 18, 2009, 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Calm Before the Bing Storm: May 2009 comScore Ranking Remain Steady

Not a whole lot changed from April to May 2009 in terms of core search share, but it will shock no one that Google still saw the biggest benefit. Overall there was a 3% decline in searches, and perhaps Memorial Day weekend had people partying instead of searching.

The biggest change, albeit still a small one, was Google upping its search share by 0.8%.

When looking at expanded searches, everyone takes a hit - except for YouTube, which saw a sweet 4% increase month over month.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 17, 2009, 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

To tweet or not to tweet?

I came across a recent study by Harvard Business which sums up Twitter 's "current condition" as such: "Twitter resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network." Hmm, surprise to some?

The study also discovered that "the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets." Now this isn't surprising to me. Those tweeters with thousands upon thousands of followers are tweeting on a daily basis, heck on an hourly basis! It makes me feel that my paltry 150+ followers aren't getting as much twitter love from me as they should. But therein lays my Twitter dilemma. I don't tweet as much as I'd like to. And this is because I'm so busy at work, including tweeting for other clients. And at the end of the work day, the last thing I care about is tweeting. And yet I love Twitter! But I'm lucky if I get off more than one to two tweets a day from my own personal account. And I rarely (if ever) hear back from my followers.

Now if I actively engaged my twitter followers, tweeting throughout the day, would they respond to my tweets with more affection and gusto? Is twitter akin to life itself? "The more you put into it, the more you get out of it."

I understand Twitter's marketing power for companies like @WholeFoods, @Starbucks, @SouthWestAir. And companies such as Dell have definitely seen a bump in sales thanks to Twitter. And these companies tweet bunches. They get lots of feedback from their followers. Maybe this is why Twitter is indeed a number's game. More than eight in ten Twitter users, most of whom represent small businesses, expect their company's use of the popular microblogging tool to increase in the next six months, according to an informal survey by MarketingProfs.

Visit twitterholic to see the latest top 100 tweeters based on followers. Oh yeah, follow me at @ByronG. I promise I won't inundate you with tweets. But if you encourage me to tweet more, I just may. :-)

Posted by Byron Gordon on June 17, 2009, 6:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Nicholas Fox of Google AdWords to Keynote at SES San Jose

It seems like I've just returned from Search Engine Strategies Toronto and it's already time to look ahead to SES San Jose. Wow, time flies when you're having fun.

And it is worth noting that Nicholas Fox, the business product management director for Google's AdWords team, will be one of the keynote speakers at Search Engine Strategies San Jose. The event, which will be held August 10-14, 2009, is expected to attract approximately 6,000 marketing professionals this year. Since there were close to 1,200 attendees at SES Toronto 2009, which was about the same number that attended last year, it seems likely that Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009 will also attract roughly the same size crowd as last year. And that was approximately 6,000 marketing professionals.

I've just returned from the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in Boston, which attracted 5,000 attendees, approximately the same number as last year. So, while trade shows and events in other industries may have been hit hard by the global recession, it appears that conferences and expos on the Internet marketing side of the fence are holding their own.

And that's a good thing. Or, as I heard at the Specialized Information Publishers Association conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, "Flat is the new up."

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

I should disclose that SES became a client in late 2007, but I started writing for Search Engine Watch in early 2002 and speaking at SES conferences in mid 2003.

Matt McGowan, Vice President and Publisher for Incisive Media's Interactive Marketing Group, said in a press release yesterday, "I can tell already that this year's SES San Jose is going to be a special one. The speakers, training programs, panels and sessions are all up there with the best we've ever had. Throw in over 150 exhibitors and some great networking events and parties, and we're looking at what very well may turn out to be the most exciting SES San Jose ever."

I interviewed McGowan during SES London 2009 back in February. He provided an overview of the SES Conference and Expo series for the upcoming year, which seems very clairvoyant now that we have about four months worth of 20/20 hindsight.

Matt McGowan, VP Publishing, Incisive Media, elaborates on SES shows in 2009

In yesterday's press release, McGowan also said he was thrilled to have Fox speaking at SES San Jose 2009. McGowan said, "It's not often that we get to hear from a management director at one of the most respected companies in the search industry. Anyone who's used Google AdWords in the past knows its value to the advertising field and this August, SES San Jose attendees are going to have the opportunity to hear the thoughts and ideas of someone who's been on the AdWords team since day one."

Fox is the business product management director for Google's AdWords. He also leads product management for AdWords bidding features. Before joining Google in 2003, he was a consultant for McKinsey & Company.

Go to the SES San Jose 2009 website for more information about the event. If you register through July 24, you can save up to $200 with the early bird rate.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 17, 2009, 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Searchme Launches Search Advertising Program Out of Beta

In February, visual search engine Searchme began testing a search advertising program in a closed beta. Now, the ad program is officially launching to all interested advertisers.

Searchme's results offer up images of website pages, which provides search marketers with an opportunity to include more design concepts into their campaigns.

"We've basically fused together the best elements of brand and keyword advertising. At the same time, we're helping consumers know exactly what they're getting before they click on an ad," said John Galatea, Searchme vice president of sales and marketing.

As a result, search marketers may find their cost-per-click maximized.

"The Searchme Ad Platform delivers more valuable clicks leading to increased conversions while reducing consumer frustration at clicking through to ads that don't match their needs," continued Galatea. "The future of search advertising is visual."

Galatea is basing his statements on the success of the beta program. Mindshare, part of the Group M unit of WPP, is including Searchme ads in their client strategy.

"We're doing a lot of testing on the Searchme Ad Platform for a number of different brands. We see some very cutting-edge, unique opportunities and we'll continue to introduce this to our clients," said Chris Westmeyer, Senior Search Strategist at Mindshare.

Mindshare isn't alone. Media Contacts, the global interactive media network of Havas Digital, is also experiencing success with Searchme ads.

"What is appealing for Media Contacts' clients is the idea of providing a pre-click site-preview in the SERP to qualify the audience and ultimately improve efficiency," said Rob Griffin, Media Contact's Senior Vice President, U.S. Director of Search, Data & Analytics. "The innovative format and integration of the ads with the organic content itself allows our clients to be part of the page flow which lends to a cleaner, less cluttered environment enabling better brand messaging at the same time."

Will you be checking out Searchme ads? Let us know your interest in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 17, 2009, 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bing's Bang Continues in Week Two

New data from comScore shows that Bing's big bang launch in week one has carried over to week two. The percentage of internet users searching Bing continued to increase and the search share enjoyed a slight uptick as well.

"It appears that Microsoft Bing has continued to generate interest from the market for the second consecutive week," said Mike Hurt, comScore senior vice president. "These early data reflect a continued positive market reaction to Bing in the initial stages of its launch."

Anecdotally, I've been hearing great things about people enjoying searching on Bing as well as increased conversions on adCenter.

What has been your Bing experience? Share in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 17, 2009, 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Facebook Overtakes MySpace in US Visits

After surpassing MySpace (and all other social networks) in worldwide visits last year, comScore is reporting that Facebook put the final points on the board in May needed to pass MySpace's US traffic.

This adds to a good week for Facebook - which recently launched its vanity URL program, hit 1 billion daily Facebook Chat messages and launched a Swahili-language version - and a bad week for Myspace - which shed 400 jobs (30% of its team) in order to cut costs and return to a "startup culture".

Still, with a #2 worldwide standing and a more robust range of advertising options than Facebook, there still seems to be a place in this world for Myspace - even in a decline. That is, unless big advertisers find ways to spend more at Facebook or learn how to leverage it with more success, at which point MySpace faces a death spiral of declining viewership and even fewer ad dollars.

What do you think? Where will MySpace be a year from now?

Posted by Herndon Hasty on June 17, 2009, 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Facebook's New Search Test Continues Faceoff with Twitter

Recently, Facebook launched a live feed, something many believed to be a move to compete with Twitter. Now, those competitive intentions seem even stronger with a new search test being rolled out by Facebook.

A small, select group of Facebook users will have the opportunity to search content on the social network as soon as it is published. Testers can search their news feed as well as the live feed of those who publicly post their Facebook content.

I can see how it would be very useful to search your news feed to see who's talking about a sports game you're watching, a new movie that's out, a political action in Washington or the ups and downs of Wall Street. That way you can skip sorting through all of the updates yourself to see just the ones you're interested in at a given moment.

With the live feed, search opens up networking opportunities and the ability to track current events via Facebook.

Last October, Facebook integrated Microsoft's Live Search to provide search for the social network. It will be interesting to see if Bing plays a role in the search test (and if perhaps Bing will serve up Facebook updates in their results).

Of course, last year Twitter acquired Summize, which was a search service based on the Twitter API. Since then, Twitter has incorporated the search into its site, going from being "just" a subdomain to being added to the front page. The feature allows Tweets to be searched as they are posted.

Even before the acquisition, people were beginning to turn to Twitter for search. Many times asking your network of friends and followers returns a result faster than sorting through results for yourself.

Despite Facebook's dominance (the site recently reached the 200 million member milestone), they seem to not be taking their strong position for granted. Competing with the new kid on the block shows that they are keeping up with the trends, something that is usually the death of social networks. But Facebook seems be very well aware of the public's insatiable thirst for immediate news and updates. It may be the thing that gives them staying power.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 17, 2009, 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ask.com Unveils Database of 300 Million Q&A Pairs

We've known for awhile now that Answers sites are on the rise. It's the very core of search - finding answers to your questions or problems. Bing, Hunch, and Wolfram Alpha have all recently launched with the goal of providing answers quickly to searchers.

Ask.com is also recognizing the intentions of searchers for answers. According to comScore, searchers type searches in the form of a question on Ask.com much more than they do other search engines.

As a result, it comes as no surprise that Ask.com has been incorporating a Q&A database into its search offering. Today at SemTech, a semantic search conference, Ask.com will announce the milestone of achieving 300 million question and answer pairs in the database. The database was developed with proprietary search semantic technology and aims to serve up the best answer results.

If you've ever used an Answers site, you know that searching on them can be tedious. There are redundancies and spam and bad information.

Ask.com's technology aims to reduce the redundancies and cull through the information to provide the best answers to their searchers.

To access the database, go to Ask.com and click on the "lots of answers" phrase above the search box. Enter your question and then click the blue "Search" button.

Or - if you've already searched your question in the regular results, look for the tabs under the search box in the top left corner and select "Q&A Beta."

What do you think of Ask.com's approach to delivering answers in search? Give us your answer in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 17, 2009, 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MySpace Layoffs to Affect 30% of Workers

Major cuts have come to MySpace in the form of a 30% reduction in its workforce. The layoffs come after upheaval at Fox Interactive Media, a division of News Corp. Fox Interactive Media as a whole announced a 5% workforce in January.

In March, former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller was tapped to run News Corp's digital unit. A month later, a former Facebook exec Owen Van Netta was appointed CEO of MySpace.

MySpace has been struggling to bring in revenue as Facebook and Twitter have become the hot social networks of the moment. Of course, it wasn't too long ago when MySpace took the reins from Friendster.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 16, 2009, 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google AdSense Adds 9 Currencies, Map Overlay for Feeds

Google AdSense has a couple of updates you'll want to know about. First, 9 currencies are now available for reporting. Publishers in the following countries can now view their earnings in their local currency:

• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Finland
• Greece
• Portugal
• South Africa
• Switzerland
• UK

Prior to enabling a local currency, Google recommends backing up past reports in U.S. dollars.

The second update has to do with AdSense in Feedburner feeds. You can now view feed traffic by geographic location via Map Overlay (a feature used in Google Analytics).

To access, log into your AdSense account, click on Manage Ads, select View Ad Stats and then choose Map Overlay.

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

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 16, 2009, 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Live Search's Last Month a Bummer But Bing Shows Promise According to Nielsen

May 2009 was the last full month of Microsoft's Live Search and it certainly did not go out with a bang. It was the only one of the top 5 search engines to experience negative growth year-over-year.

But Bing's early June launch shows early promise for Microsoft's new "decision engine."

Image via Nielsen Online blog

Bing doubled LIve Search's unique numbers in week one, plus increased search share from 8.7% to 14.7%.

Image via Nielsen Online blog

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 16, 2009, 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Mobile Adds Nine Countries, 100 Devices

Yahoo! is enabling their mobile page (http://new.m.yahoo.com) for nine additional countries. They are:

• Singapore
• Malaysia
• Taiwan
• Australia
• Mexico
• Brazil
• Argentina
• Spain
• Italy

This brings the grand total to 17 countries with access to the Yahoo! mobile page.

"We're thrilled with the consumer adoption of Yahoo! as a starting point to the Internet experience on mobile devices," said David Ko, senior vice president, Yahoo! Mobile. "With products like the new Yahoo! Mobile, we're invigorating the mobile industry and creating consumer demand for compelling Internet services across a variety of mobile platforms. We're delivering engaging and customizable user experiences for consumers around the globe, ultimately putting them in control of their mobile lives."

Additionally, 100 mobile devices are now enabled to access Yahoo! Mobile. That means there are over 400 devices now able to access the mobile experience.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 16, 2009, 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Maps for Android Gets Voice Search, Transit Directions, and Latitude Update

Google is releasing an update to their Maps product for Android phones. With the update comes new features: Voice Search, Transit Directions and Latitude Update.

Voice search is a great addition because typing is tedious on mobile devices. Plus, if you're walking, it's much easier to talk to your phone than to type (and walk into people, poles, etc.).

Meanwhile, if you're using public transportation or walking around an unfamiliar place, transit directions can help you navigate your route. Transit directions are available for over 250 cities.

Latitude has had some glitches fixed and a new experimental feature called Update allows you to update friends and family from your current location.

The update will not be released as an automatic push, so visit Android Market to download the latest version of Google Maps.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 16, 2009, 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Five More Newspapers Join Yahoo! Newspaper Consortium

The Yahoo! Newspaper Consortium has grown by 5. The new papers joining the mix are the Orange County (Calif.) Register and TheGazette in Colorado Springs, Colo.; the North Jersey Media Group's The Record and Herald News; and The San Diego Union-Tribune.

The consortium began in November 2006 with 176 newspapers and has grown to 814. It started out by connecting the newspapers with Yahoo!'s HotJobs job search engine. The partnership has grown to include products like search and content.

"Selling targeted and measurable advertising campaigns to local businesses is really delivering results for our newspaper partners," said Lem Lloyd, vice president, U.S. Partnerships, Yahoo! Inc. "With more and more local advertisers shifting dollars from traditional media to online, local advertising is a great growth opportunity for the newspaper industry."

In fact, 350 newspapers have been the recipient of 23 million referrals per month as a result of the distribution of headlines across Yahoo! sites.

In a day where newspapers are struggling to survive, partnerships like these can give a boon to their online business.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 16, 2009, 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Further Clarifies Nofollow and PageRank Sculpting

Earlier this month, Matt Cutts shared with search marketers that Google had begun treating nofollow differently, especially in regards to "PageRank sculpting," the advanced SEO tactic that aims to control where PageRank flows around a site.

Today, he goes into detail on how Google views PageRank sculpting, and how it treats the nofollow attribute in regards to PageRank flow.

Cutts offers a simplified description of the PageRank process, where a page's value flows out to the various pages it links to equally. When the nofollow attribute originally came on the scene, Google would just remove those links from the equation, according to Cutts. So if a page with 10 "PageRank points" to share had ten links on it, and five were nofollowed, each regular link would pass two PageRank points.

Cutts today said that Google changed this practice more than a year ago to keep the nofollowed links in the equation, but not passing any PageRank points. So in that same example, the regular links would each pass 1 PageRank point, and the nofollowed links would still "use up" their allotted points, even though they did not pass those points on.

Cutts once again reiterated his stance that PageRank sculpting is not the best way for an SEO to spend his or her time:

I wouldn't recommend it, because it isn't the most effective way to utilize your PageRank. In general, I would let PageRank flow freely within your site. The notion of "PageRank sculpting" has always been a second- or third-order recommendation for us. I would recommend the first-order things to pay attention to are 1) making great content that will attract links in the first place, and 2) choosing a site architecture that makes your site usable/crawlable for humans and search engines alike.

For example, it makes a much bigger difference to make sure that people (and bots) can reach the pages on your site by clicking links than it ever did to sculpt PageRank. If you run an e-commerce site, another example of good site architecture would be putting products front-and-center on your web site vs. burying them deep within your site so that visitors and search engines have to click on many links to get to your products.

There may be a miniscule number of pages (such as links to a shopping cart or to a login page) that I might add nofollow on, just because those pages are different for every user and they aren't that helpful to show up in search engines. But in general, I wouldn't recommend PageRank sculpting.

Why is Google sharing this information now, a year after the change was made? Apparently, they were hoping that SEOs would notice the change and report on it themselves, but they didn't. Then Matt's repeated assertions that PR sculpting wasn't a good use of time went unheeded as well.

One of the biggest ways this affects most search marketers is on pages with user comments that are nofollowed. In the early days of nofollow, those pages would have received a boost over their pre-nofollowed state, since the PageRank taken up by those links would be redistributed by other links on the page.

But as of Google's change last year, those pages should have reverted to their pre-nofollow state, where the nofollowed links did use up PageRank. But with nofollow, those nofollowed links don't share PageRank with other sites, it just dissipates.

But Cutts advises against deciding not to turn off comments to avoid linking out at all:

I wouldn't recommend closing comments in an attempt to "hoard" your PageRank. In the same way that Google trusts sites less when they link to spammy sites or bad neighborhoods, parts of our system encourage links to good sites.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on June 16, 2009, 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

MapQuest Launches iPhone App

AOL-owned MapQuest has been available as a free application for Blackberry users and now iPhone users are getting the goods as well. While MapQuest has been available on the mobile web, apps are usually faster and more user-friendly.

One of the highlights of the app is a "carousel" of options shown at the bottom of a map. It offers icons for things like gas stations and hotels. Click on an icon and find nearby locations of the selected category.

Below is a map of an area in north/west Raleigh. The icon for "coffee" has been selected.

The carousel is easy to use and quite convenient. You can select multiple categories to display and simply click again to stop showing a category. It will only show what's in the Map View, so zoom in or out to expand or decrease the locations shown on your screen.

The app, however, needs a lot of work in the search department. The app consistently returns a "No Search Results Found" button - for everything from "Cedar Point" to "Washington Monument" to "Las Vegas."

You also need to sign into an account if you want to access "My Places" features. Registering and signing into accounts via mobile phone is a pain.

Right now, the app is perfect for finding nearby coffee, hotels, traffic conditions, etc. Hopefully in the future we'll see better search and more functions without needing a MapQuest account.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 16, 2009, 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft Files Click Fraud Suit in Washington State

Microsoft has filed a click fraud suit against brothers Eric and Gordon Lam and their mother Melanie Suen. The suit was filed in the Western District Court of Washington and involves click fraud pertaining to a scheme involving auto insurance and the video game World of Warcraft.

The adCenter blog offered up a visual representation of what click fraud looks like. The image below maps IP sources and the clusters indicate automated traffic. Normal traffic would be more evenly spread with a variety of IP sources hailing from throughout the Internet.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 16, 2009, 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hunch Launches New "Decision Engine"

Microsoft's Bing isn't the only "decision engine" in town anymore, with today's launch of Hunch. Hunch is a new site that aims to connect people based on their answers to several questions, from "Where is your house located?" to "Do you like bumper cars?"

As users answer questions, hunch learns more about them. The service then helps the user make decisions, such as where to go on vacation, or what kind of car to buy, by asking a series of related questions and comparing those answers to similar users' answers and the user's past answers on Hunch.

Hunch will become smarter both as more people use it, and as an individual uses it more.

According to the site's Fact Sheet:

Our long-term goal is for a user to be able to come to Hunch with any decision she is pondering, and after answering a handful of questions, get as good a decision as if she had interviewed a group of knowledgeable people or done hours of careful research online.

Eventually, when Hunch gets good enough, we hope users will trust it to make an informed decision without having to turn to lots of external time-consuming sources of information.

The site has been in invite-only beta since March, but opens to the public this week. Its 10-person team includes several MIT computer scientists and Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, who is a Hunch co-founder and chief product officer.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on June 15, 2009, 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yahoo! Contributes to Development of Semantic Tagging Format

If you've ever used tagging to bookmark or organize content, you know that there can be many different tags associated with a variety of terms and topics. Mustang could be a tag for a car or a horse. Columbus is a city but also a historical figure. Los Angeles could be tagged as la or los_angeles.

Now, Yahoo!, Zemanta, AdaptiveBlue, DERI (NUI Galway), Faviki, Freebase and Zigtag have collaborated to develop a semantic tagging format in the hopes of unifying the tagging process. Dubbed Common Tag, the format is an open tag with metadata and unique URLs.

"Semantic tagging is an important next step in the evolution of the Web. When we add semantic meaning to tags, the content that is tagged becomes significantly easier for machines to understand," said Peter Mika from Yahoo! Research. "That in turn allows for the development of more intelligent applications for aggregating, searching, and browsing the Web."

The idea is that over time, more and more websites and internet companies embrace Common Tag. Ultimately, content discovered through Common Tags could be used in application development, furthering and streamlining the distribution of published content on the web.

What do you think of Common Tag? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 12, 2009, 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Follow Search Engine Watch on Twitter

It's #followfriday on Twitter, that day when you spam your followers with lists of names you drop to impress them...or something like that. In theory, the idea is good: share some of your favorite Twitterers with your followers, assuming they'll like what they have to say too. In practice, it can be overused and worthless.

I'm guilty of doing it myself today on the official SEW Twitter account (@sewatch), which made me realize it would be more useful to blog about all the SEW folks who are active on Twitter, broken down by category.

So here's the current list of SEW Experts on Twitter:

SEM News
Nathania Johnson (@nathaniajohnson)
Frank Watson (@AussieWebmaster)
Greg Jarboe (@gregjarboe)
Kevin Newcomb (@kevinnewcomb)

SEM Basics
Ron Jones (@Ron_Jones)

Search Engine Optimization
Eric Enge (@stonetemple)
Mark Jackson (@MarkJackson)

Search Advertising
Melissa Mackey (@Mel66)
David Szetela (@Szetela)

Analytics & ROI
Tim Ash (@tim_ash)

Social Media Marketing
Erik Qualman (@equalman)
Li Evans (@storyspinner)

Promotion & Link Building
Sage Lewis (@sagerock)

Local & Mobile Search
Michael Boland (@mikeboland)
Gregg Stewart (@greggstewart)

SMB Search Marketing
Carrie Hill (@CarrieHill)

Enterprise SEM
Herndon Hasty (@herndon)

SEM Agency Issues
Joshua Palau (@joshuapalau)

The Search Industry
Frank Watson (@AussieWebmaster)
Chris Boggs (@boggles)
Kevin Newcomb (@kevinnewcomb)

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on June 12, 2009, 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Twitter and the Wild West

Trying to keep up with the latest Twitter applications can be daunting. Dozens of new Twitter apps have come out over the past year. Twitter knew that making its API freely available would actually provide leverage for its own survival and keep the excitement flowing about this powerful social media tool. I recently attended the 140 Twitter Conference. At least 8 new Twitter apps in various stages of production (AKA, not quite ready for prime time) were presented, with names like Twilk, Flaggpole and Jobaba. It never ends folks!

And then I receive an email about this new automated Twitter app called Twitterxtreme. Red Alert! We know how controversial automated tweeting is as trumpeted by such Twitterati like Guy Kawasaki. I noticed Twitterxtreme also has spelling errors and run-on sentences right on its homepage, so it sort of raises a few eyebrows about the product's value proposition. Although if truth be told, I don't have a problem with tweeters who send back automated replies when you first start following them (I do it).

But what I hope to plug with each new post is an effective Twitter tool that allows you to tweet without compromising your ethics! I'd like to start-off by giving a shout to the makers of Twitc. This is a super easy to use app where you can upload vids and pics to the site using your existing Twitter account. It acts as host for your media, which you can then tweet! For high-end photographers, TwitC should help you out immensely in getting your latest work up and out into the Twittersphere. For YouTubers, you can easily import videos via URLs. Although still in beta mode, its programming appears top-notch. Once you log-in, click on your dashboard and a list of options appears, allowing you to upload vids, create new albums to organize your pics, and add album names and covers. Give it a try!

Posted by Byron Gordon on June 12, 2009, 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

AOL Goes for Local with the Acquisition of Patch and Going

AOL is making local a core part of their business model. And it's a worthy goal. Local searches grew 58% in 2008 and $103 billion will be spent on local advertising (both online and off) this year.

Still, the local search niche has a bit of an identity crisis. We've seen prospective progress such as CitySquares, the newly launched Bing, and the mobile search space. Now, AOL seeks to help consolidate the space with the acquisition of two local content providers: Patch and Going.

Patch is a local news and information provider while Going is centered more around events that locals can discover and share. Of course, AOL already owns one of the most popular online mapping resources in MapQuest.

The combination of search, local and mapping could be the perfect storm for AOL, if new CEO Tim Armstrong has his way.

"Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today -- there's a lot of information out there but simply no way for consumers to find it quickly and easily," said Tim Armstrong, AOL's Chairman and CEO. "It's a space that's prime for innovation and an area where AOL has a significant audience and a valuable mapping service in MapQuest."

Of course, Armstrong came to AOL from Google, a company known for innovation in search.

"Going forward, local will be a core area of focus and investment for AOL," said Armstrong. "The acquisitions of Patch and Going will help us build out our local network further with excellent local services that enable people to stay better informed about what's going on in their neighborhood."

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 12, 2009, 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bing Adds Translation Instant Answer

One of the great things about Live Search that has carried over to Bing is Instant Answers. There are shopping, travel and sports Instant Answers. Now, there are translation Instant Answers.

Type in the word or phrase you would like to have translated followed by the language. For example, I typed in "have a nice day in portuguese" and here's what Bing returned:

If you're translating to English, don't forget to include accent marks, otherwise you may not get the translation. But for your basic Instant Answers, it seems to work pretty good.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 12, 2009, 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

9 More Google Updates to Shake a Stick At

At the end of last week, Google released so many updates, we had to consolidate them into a single post. This week, the Google factory is busy pushing out a bunch of new tweaks and launches you'll want to know about:

Webmaster Tools released a slew of updates in the past couple of days. Google has completed its switch to the new interface and launched a new feature: Change of Address. You can also now forward messages from Webmaster Tools to your email address. Last but not least, Webmaster Tools offers an update on the latest goings on with Sitemaps.

YouTube has also been busy. A new update allows users to share videos on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Reader. Also, the new YouTube Biz Blog has been created to serve up tips and tricks for advertisers and partners.

Google Analytics has released Urchin 6.6.

A new version of iGoogle has been released for Android and iPhone devices.

You can now broadcast your Latitude location on your Google profile by enabling the Google public location badget.

Mobile Gmail now has faster email address completion and Android devices are getting Gmail keyboard shortcuts.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 12, 2009, 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

$14 Million For CircuitCity Domain, Brand = Good Link Buy?

Aaron Wall does a great analysis of the smart play by the company that bought the CircuitCity domain and brand out of bankruptcy as the new high end link buying procedure.

The site is well ranked for many many keywords and with the recent boost of brands in the Google algorithm it could be that $14 million was a bargain that could be recouped very quickly.

Aaron does a great job dissecting the purchase and gives one ideas for gaining lift from less expensive domains that have gone into bankruptcy. I wonder if people will now start looking at bankruptcy reports instead of the expired domain lists.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 11, 2009, 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Will New CFO Morse Answer Yahoo's SOS

Yahoo announced the appointment of a new CFO today - Tim Morse "will be responsible for the company's finance, investor relations, and mergers and acquisitions groups. He will commence employment on June 17, 2009 and will assume the responsibilities of CFO on July 1, 2009," the company stated.

The new SOS - is "Save Our Stock" and I am sure there are a lot of people hoping Morse is related to the inventor of Morse code and gets the message.

"Tim has a proven ability to translate strategy into structure, process, and execution, and I am delighted that he will be joining my leadership team to help drive Yahoo!'s growth," said Carol Bartz, Yahoo CEO. "With his passion for operational finance, global experience, and expertise simplifying complex organizations and managing growth, Tim is a natural fit for Yahoo!."

Morse comes from Altera Corporation, a semiconductor company and before that GE where he worked for over 15 years.

Many stockholders will be following his performance.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 11, 2009, 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Three Lists from SES Toronto's Social Media Panel

In the "Social Media: Do Big Companies Get It?" panel at SES Toronto, it turned out that the three presenters each offered a checklist of sorts. Though they shared more insight than just this, it's a handy way to sum up some of the knowledge they shared.

First, we have 5 Myths of Social Media, from Mark Evans:

1. Social media is free -- not when you count your time, money, and resources.
2. Social media is easy -- it's not.
3. Social media is about the tools -- but tools are worthless without a clear goal of what you want them to do.
4. Social media is a standalone activity -- it's not an add-on, it needs to be built in from the beginning.
5. Measuring ROI is difficult -- but there are lots of tools to track, monitor, and measure activity.

Then, we have 7 Mistakes of Social Media, from Krista Neher:

1. Focusing on the Numbers -- instead of building an audience of people who care about what you're doing.
2. Hijacking the conversation -- instead of joining it.
3. Spamming -- instead of respecting the conversation.
4. Being irrelevant -- instead of joining conversations where you fit in.
5. Being boring -- instead of giving people something that interests them, not just yourself.
6. Not being committed -- instead of being there to respond when people have questions/concerns.
7. Not playing nice -- instead of being kind and respectful to everyone.

Finally, there's 5 Ways to Impact Your Ranking on Social News Sites from Guillaume Bouchard:

1. Content -- "To make a long story short, you have to make a long story short."
2. Platform -- "Digg is allergic to commercial sites."
3. Submitter -- more important in Digg than StumbleUpon.
4. Category -- The category you choose to write in will affect the level of competition you face.
5. Solicitation -- The number of votes doesn't affect Digg's algorithm as much as StumbleUpon's

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on June 11, 2009, 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Top Stories from SES Toronto: Day 2 (Belatedly)

I should have posted the top stores from Day 2 of SES Toronto yesterday, but I have some really lame excuses for why I didn't get around to posting this until today. Let's just say I watched the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees last night instead. Mea culpa (but my team won 6-5).

In other news, the top story on Tuesday was clearly the keynote presentation by Emanuel Rosen, author of The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited. After his keynote, I interviewed Rosen, who discussed the lessons learned about Blendtec's "Will It Blend?" videos which have been viewed close to 77 million times by YouTube users. Rosen said more than 1,000 people asked Blendtec to blend an iPhone, and as a result, they did so -- and emailed those people when the video was uploaded to YouTube. It is also worth noting that Blendtec's sales are up 700 percent.

Emanuel Rosen on generating buzz in the online and offline communities

Another one of the top stories is "Putting the M Back in SEM" by Kevin Newcomb of Search Engine Watch. According to Newcomb, "Just about every session offered the same general advice: stop chasing algorithms and build a site that people will trust; build links that will drive qualified traffic, and the SEO benefits will follow."

Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Stacey Jarvis, Search Lead, Consumer & Online, Microsoft Canada about search engine marketing and bing! Jarvis spoke on the Orion Panel: Is PageRank Broken? - The Future of Search. According to Jarvis, more than 60 percent of Canadians are using multiple search engines.

Stacey Jarvis, Microsoft Canada, on search marketing today and bing!

Tyler Calder of the Search Engine People Blog posted "SES Toronto 2009: Canada Specific SEO & PPC Issues." According to Calder, "Many SEO matters are common around the globe, but Canadian companies face some unique issues."

Mitch Joel, Twist Image, interviewed Nick Papsiopolis of Yahoo Canada about the state of mobile applications. Papsiopolis said the growth of mobile apps has been phenomenal over the past year.

Nick Papsiopolis, Yahoo Canada, on the adoption of new mobile applications

Evan Carmichael of the Entrepreneur Blog posted "SES Toronto - Day 2 - SEO University." According to Carmichael, "Just like I did yesterday, today I wanted to share with you some of the highlights from today's workshops. I again stayed mostly to the Geek Track to get really deep on technical issues and tactics to build more traffic."

Nick Cox of Semantec Monkey posted "SES Toronto." According to Cox, "If you've never done it, you'd be amazed at the havoc a 3 hour PST to EST timezone change can play with your body clock."

Patrick Landry of Ressac Media posted "Retour sur Search Engine Strategies Toronto 2009." According to Landry, "l'industrie du Search garde sa pertinence, un domaine d'innovation et d'avancée technologique qui ne cessera de me surprendre."

Finally, if you want to see what the event looked like, check out "SES Toronto - Photos Day 2." According to Alexandre Bussiere of NVI, "More expert wise words were spoken during a day full of speaker sessions, these and the first day's all captured here in live blogging form."

Or, you can also go to the SES Conference Series' photostream on Flickr. My favorite photo is the crowd at the bing booth at SES Toronto 2009.

Crowd at the bing booth at SES Toronto 2009

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 11, 2009, 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How's Your Whuffie Doing?

This week at SES Toronto, Tara Hunt shared some insights from her new book, The Whuffie Factor. In Hunt's definition, "whuffie" is social capital, composed of reputation, trust, connections, influence, and other factors. It becomes a kind of currency.

As it turns out, her message was echoed elsewhere at Search Engine Strategies Toronto, and throughout the search industry today.

Basically, you need to treat people with respect, deliver what they need in a way they enjoy, and don't try to hold onto things too tight.

Hunt shared a few tactics that would help marketers accomplish those goals, with 5 Ways to Raise your Whuffie:

1. Turn the Bullhorn Around. Instead of shouting impersonally at your customers, listen to them. Become a "beacon for constant feedback." Focus on individuals, and understanding the needs of the community. People want to be treated like "special snowflakes."


2. Become Part of the Community You Serve. Get out of your head, and into the community. Collaborate and share with them. Fall in love with what your customers love. Figure out what problem you're solving, and for whom you're solving it, then join them.


3. Create Amazing Experiences. Become remarkable. Solve problems for your customers so seamlessly, it feels like magic. Engage in fun, lightweight activities that encourage user participation, aka "throwing sheep." Lighten up.


4. Embrace the Chaos. You cannot control the message. Get that through your head. Let go of your perceived control, and you'll see good things come back to you.


5. Find a Higher Purpose. Find a way to give back to the community. Whuffie is part of a gift economy. It's only worth something when it circulates, and the more you give away, the more you get. Do well by doing good.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on June 11, 2009, 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hitwise Adds to Good News for Bing

We've already seen comScore and StatCounter report an auspicious start for Microsoft's newly launched Bing search engine. Now, Hitwise shares Initial Bing Stats for US and Canada.

According to Heather Dougherty, Hitwise's director of research:

In the US, Bing ranked 17th among all websites out of over 450,000 websites, up from 5120 the week before the official launch when the website was merely a placeholder. Within the Search Engines category, Bing ranked 4th out of the search engines tracked by Hitwise and Bing Image Search ranked 15th for the week ending June 6, 2009.

In Canada, Bing hit the top 10 among all websites during the first week of launch and captured 1% of all Canadian Internet visits last week. Bing also ranked 3rd last week in terms of the market share of visits within the Search Engines category behind Google Canada and Google.

That's quite a hot start, though it remains to be seen how long that traffic level can be sustained. It's driving awareness with its TV ad campaigns, media coverage, and curiosity, but those things won't keep Bing going at these levels for long. Microsoft needs to offer searchers something that exceeds what they can get from their current search engine -- most likely Google -- to make them change their behavior.

The surge in traffic is at least worth a short-term look from advertisers. Melissa Mackey took a look at Bing from an advertiser perspective today in "Can Bing Really Bring It for PPC Advertisers?" She says it's more than just rebranded Live Search, and Microsoft has promised more advertising innovations coming down the line soon.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on June 11, 2009, 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Audience for Local Content Accessed by Mobile Devices Grows 51% in a Year

It's no secret that the mobile internet is on the rise, and accessing local information while on-the-go is growing by leaps and bounds. The number of people accessing local content via mobile devices grew by 51% in March 2009 over March 2008, according to comScore.

By far, the mobile browser is the most popular source for accessing local information. 20.7 million users did so in March 2009, an increase of 34% over March 2008

However, mobile apps are the fastest growing, increasing by 83% year-over-year. SMS (aka text messaging) grew 72%. Mobile apps and SMS still trail far behind mobile browsers at 11.3 million users and 11.7 million users respectively for March 2009.

Among the types of content, online directories had the highest percentage of growth, followed by restaurants, maps, and movies.

With hot new phones like the Palm Pre and iPhone 3G S, mobile will only continue to grow and grow. Be sure to get your local content out there and optimize for mobile search!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 10, 2009, 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

adCenter Add-In for Excel Out of Beta, Rebranded to Microsoft Advertising Intelligence

adCenter has released its Add-In for Excel out of beta and has given it a brand new name: Microsoft Advertising Intelligence. The tool is available in the US, Canada, UK and France.

The tool is designed to aid SEMs in their keyword research and optimization within adCenter. It includes keyword expansion, research, pricing, and KPI data.

US customers will also see new features including Vertical Top List, Vertical KPI's and Content Impressions by Month.

Have you used the Add-In for Excel? Do you recommend the newly named Microsoft Advertising Intelligence? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 10, 2009, 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook to Give Out User Names at Midnight EST Friday Night

You might need to get home early from the clubs on Friday night. At midnight, Facebook begins giving out user names and you'll want to act fast if you want a popular one or just one that's related to your name. With 200 million members across the globe, it's quite likely the one you want will be grabbed up quick.

If you're brand new to Facebook, meaning you've signed up since May 31, you might be out of luck. Those members are being restricted due to Facebook's desire to quash the squatters who will inevitably be out there to take up all the good names just to do nothing with them (yeah, I'm looking at you, dude with 1,000 domains).

Also, you better really love the name you've chosen because once you have it, you can't change it or transfer it. I sincerely hope they make exceptions for single ladies who eventually get married because we married ladies know what a pain in the you-know-where it is to change our last names. Google still refers to me as my maiden name, despite my name changing efforts. (You know men come up with these rules, right?)

Will you be sitting at your computer with a Red Bull on midnight? Or do you not care (especially since FB profiles are so private)? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 10, 2009, 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

StumbleUpon's New URL Shortening Service to Allow Simultaneous Posts to SU, Twitter, and Facebook

It's a conundrum many of us have faced. We have a Twitter account and a Facebook account. We don't always have the same followers and friends on each. But sometimes we want to share the same content with both. It used to be that you could Tweet something and the Twitter app on Facebook would update both. But about a month ago, that all went to the crapper.

Many of us turned to Tweetdeck. Now, there's another option: Su.pr. Even better? The content will also be submitted to StumbleUpon which sees about 8 million users a month.

This is the soon-to-be-launched new URL shortening service launched by StumbleUpon, but you also get the option of updating Twitter and Facebook when you're up to all your shortening ways.

If you can't wait, you can go ahead to http://su.pr and request an invite code. Be forewarned that the invite codes will be given out via Twitter and looking at StumbleUpon's Twitter feed, they're just getting started.

This is a great way to streamline your content sharing. But that's just my opinion. What's yours? Share in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 10, 2009, 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

CitySquares Offers All Businesses Couponing Opportunity

Local search site CitySquares is now offering all businesses the opportunity to extend coupons to their customers. To take advantage of the opportunity:

1. Go to CitySquares.com


2. Find your business listing


3. Look for the Edit Listing option in a blue box on the right. (If you're new, you'll need to register)


4. Edit your business information to offer a coupon.

CitySquares recommends asking customers to bring coupons with them so you're able to track who is visiting your business via their local search.

Last year, online couponing skyrocketed when the economy took a nosedive. This is a free and easy way to reach out to new customers, especially since CitySquares is one of the fastest growing search sites on the web.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 10, 2009, 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Initial comScore Data Confirms Bing's First Week Success

Last week, StatCounter was the first to release data showing Bing doing well in its first week. Now, comScore data seems to corroborate that sentiment, albeit not the extreme success in StatCounter's numbers.

comScore compared data from Microsoft's search sites the week before Bing's launch to the first 5 days it was live. Check it out:

Of course, it remains to be seen if this is the beginning of a nice momentum or if it's all out of curiosity.

"These initial data suggest that Microsoft Bing has generated early interest, resulting in a spike in search engagement and an immediate term improvement to Microsoft's position in the search market," said Mike Hurt, comScore senior vice president. "So far it appears that the lifts in searcher penetration and engagement have held relatively steady throughout the five-day period. The ultimate performance of Bing depends on the extent to which it generates more trial through its extensive launch campaign and whether it retains those trial users. It appears it is off to a good start."

What do you think is Bing's fate? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 9, 2009, 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Facebook, Games Rank as Top Canadian Search Terms

Yesterday, we reported on data from Hitwise on the length of keywords in Canadian searches. Today, Hitwise has released information on what Canadians are searching for.

Of the top 100 searches, only 13 are generic (In the US, only 9 out of the top 100 are generic). The rest are navigational. Take a look:

As you can see, games was the top generic term, coming in at #18. Eight of the top 100 terms were related to games. When looking at French search terms, "jeux" (games) was the highest generic term as well. (Americans search for games, but the term comes in at #85.)

Out of the top 100, 16 were for social networks, 14 retail, and 9 banking.

What do you think of this Hitwise data? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 9, 2009, 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Google Analytics to Include Bing in Default Search Engine List

Google Analytics is tracking Bing, but it plans further integration of the new search engine soon. While you can currently see Bing as a source of traffic referrals, an upcoming update will include Bing in the default list of search engines.

If you want to have the update sooner, you can manually add the following line to your Google Analytics tracking code:


pageTracker._addOrganic("bing", "q");


The code is considered a temporary solution and is advised for use by advanced analytics users only.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 9, 2009, 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Early Google Adviser, Stanford Professor Drowns

Stanford University professor Rajeev Motwani was found drowned in his pool Friday, the Associated Press reported.

Friends told the school news service he did not know how to swim.

Motwani was an unofficial advisor to Sergey Brin when he was studying at the university and developing Google. Brin wrote about him in his blog

"It is with great sadness that I write about the passing of my teacher and good friend Professor Rajeev Motwani. But I would rather not dwell on the sorrow of his death and instead celebrate his life.

Officially, Rajeev was not my advisor, and yet he played just as big a role in my research, education, and professional development. In addition to being a brilliant computer scientist, Rajeev was a very kind and amicable person and his door was always open. No matter what was going on with my life or work, I could always stop by his office for an interesting conversation and a friendly smile.

When my interest turned to data mining, Rajeev helped to coordinate a regular meeting group on the subject. Even though I was just one of hundreds of graduate students in the department, he always made the time and effort to help. Later, when Larry and I began to work together on the research that would lead to Google, Rajeev was there to support us and guide us through challenges, both technical and organizational," Brin blogged.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 9, 2009, 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Version of Safari Browser Incorporates Coverflow to Search Web History

Among the many announcements Apple made at the keynote of its World Wide Developer Conference yesterday was a new version of its Safari web browser. The update includes the ability to search your browsing history via Coverflow.

Coverflow, if you're not familiar, is something Apple's been using for years on iTunes and iPod/iPhone. It displays images and you scroll (or swipe if you have a touch screen) left to right to browse. With music, it displays album covers and you select the one you want.

We've seen visual search engines launch to implement something similar into search. Searchme and Viewzi are two great examples.

Of course, this update in the Safari browser is different in that it only searches your web history. We haven't seen a lot from Apple in the way of search. But with Google going after enterprise and software (though mostly through the cloud) and Microsoft going after search, Apple may feel the need one day to do so.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 9, 2009, 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Top Stories from SES Toronto: Day 1

It wasn't hard to find the top stories from the first day of SES Toronto. All you had to do was conduct a search in YouTube, Google News, and Google Blog Search.

On YouTube, you could find a video interview by Byron Gordon of SEO-PR with the keynote speaker entitled, "Tara Hunt on 'green' shampoo and whuffie!" Hunt, the author of The Whuffie Factor, discusses the key principles of Whuffie, or how you go about generating brand for yourself by citing a fictional example of a "green" shampoo.

In Google News, I found "Signals: What Relevancy Indicators are Search Engineers Watching for Today? SES Toronto Day 1." According to Paul Teitelman of Search Engine People, "Seems befitting that one of the first sessions here at SES Toronto will focus on the future of search, and more specifically, what relevancy factors search engineers will need to look out for as the ever changing Google & other search engine algorithms continue to shape our industry."

I also found "Submit Your Entries for the 2009 Search Engine Watch Awards" on Search Engine Watch. According to Kevin Newcomb of Search Engine Watch, there are 14 categories for the 2009 SEW Awards. Submissions will be accepted through July 17, 2009. Winners will be announced at SES San Jose in August.

Gordon also uploaded "Nick Cox, Senior Product Manager, SearchMonkey on univeral/blended search" to YouTube. According to Cox, SearchMonkey is currently live in 23 markets; it's a free platform and publishers are getting much better clickthrough rates.

Using Google Blog Search, I found "SES Toronto 09: SEO Then & Now." According to Eric Amzallag of NVI, "Here is the what has changed and stayed the same in the SEO world."

According to "Notes From SES Toronto 2009" on Toronto Mike's Blog, "I still think they should rename this show the Google Strategies. Yahoo! Canada is exhibiting, as is Microsoft Bing, but it's all about The Google. Over 80% of all Canadian searches now happen in Google."

Garry Przyklenk at PPC-Advice.com wrote, "SES Toronto: Day 1 Recap." He said, "You know: given the current economic crisis, turn out for SES Toronto is actually better than I suspected, and so is the production value."

Manny Rivas at the aimClear Search Marketing Blog wrote, "Evolution of SEO: A Decade of Perspective At SES." He said, "The same tactics that worked in 1999 simply won't cut it anymore."

Meanwhile, Dev Basu of Search Marketing Insights wrote "SES Toronto 2009 Day 1 Recap." According to Basu, "My first day at SES Toronto was info packed, networking wild, and quite interesting to say the least."

And Francis Vallières of Go-Referencement.org wrote, "Résumé SES Toronto 2009 : jour 1 partie 1." He wrote, "Comme à chaque mois de Juin, NVI visite Toronto pour l'évenement SES Toronto, une conférence réunissant la plupart des acteurs importants dans le domaine du référencement et du marketing de recherche au Canada. Plusieurs conférences ont été donné aujourd'hui sur plusieurs sujets et je vasi tenter de vous en faire un résumé."

Last but not least, you'll also find "Jeff Quipp, SearchEnginePeople, on the past, present and future of SEO" on YouTube. Quipp discusses Google's dominance in Canada, and references a surprising statistic about Google's monthly keyword search.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 8, 2009, 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After Selling Off Media Division, MIVA to Rebrands as Vertro

In March, MIVA sold off its media division to Adknowledge. Now, they're rebranding their newly-focused business as Vertro.

"We're excited to announce the planned launch of Vertro. We believe the rebrand is the culmination of a period of significant change for our Company following the sale of MIVA Media in March," said Peter Corrao, MIVA's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Following the sale, we now have a strengthened balance sheet, reduced overheads and a streamlined team that can now focus its resource on the development and expansion of our consumer-oriented product portfolio."

Vertro will be focused on their ALOT toolbar and desktop to provide third-party content for searchers to discover and publishers to display.

The company's stock was traded on the NASDAQ. The ticker symbol will change from NASDAQ:MIVA to NASDAQ:VTRO. The changes are expected to be complete by today.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 8, 2009, 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Twitter to Launch Verified Accounts to Help Prevent Impersonation

When public figures and celebrities have people pretending to be them, the self-important get all bent out of shape. Twitter has been ripe for impersonations, despite the ban of such accounts via the Twitter Terms of Service. While Twitter is aggressive in suspending fake accounts, I would argue most people are able to spot these fakes a mile away. That doesn't prevent the impersonated from getting their egos bruised.

For these celebrities and also for the rare down-to-earth ones, Twitter is launching Verified Accounts. It will begin as an experimental offering this summer. The experiment will begin with individuals, though Twitter sees potential in extending verification to businesses in the future.

You'll know if an account is official by a notification on the user's page. Twitter also suggested checking out the official website of the public figure you're interested in to see if they link to their Twitter account.

In the meantime, continue using that brain of yours to spot the fakes. Usually, they're as obvious as the Prado street vendors in New York City.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 8, 2009, 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Half of Canadian Web Searches Contain Just 1-2 Words

If brevity is the soul of wit, then Canadian web searchers are hilarious. According to new statistics by Hitwise, about half of Canadian internet searches are kept to just 1-2 words. As you can see by the chart below, Americans are the most wordy, while Brits keep it short and sweet.

Hitwise says that banks and financial information is often sought by just 1 word, while shopping and classifieds sites show similar search patterns to all categories (as depicted in the image above).

Hitwise just started a Canadian data-gathering effort and will be releasing more information about Canadian searches in the coming days. We'll keep tracking the info, so stay tuned.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 8, 2009, 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SES Toronto 2009 Kicks Off Today in Canada

The largest search engine marketing conference and expo in Canada kicks off today at the Sheraton Centre Toronto. And Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto 2009 marked the occasion by announcing the addition of Express Site Clinics in the Expo Hall, which will be taught by Shari Thurow, Jennifer Slegg and Ken Jurina.

The event 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.

In a press release, Goodman said, "Don't miss the opportunity to visit the Expo Hall and take in the added bonus of an Express Site Clinic! No need for appointments as these PowerPoint-free, interactive clinics are 'first-come, first-served' offering you a rare chance to get your Web site reviewed live by one of our SES experts."

The Express Site Clinics will be held at Booth #6 in the Expo Hall. They are:

Express Search Usability Clinic -- Get one-on-one advise from Shari Thurow, Founder and SEO Director, Omni Marketing Interactive, for usability, design, copy, link development, and any technical issues that may prevent your Web site from receiving high quality search engine traffic and visitor conversions.

User Friendly Sites That Monetize Well -- Is your site user friendly or are visitors wandering around lost before finally hitting the back button? How clean is your content and is it engaging for your readers? Are your on-site ads suffering from banner blindness or can they be placed in a better position to increase revenue without alienating visitors by being too blatant? Get tips from Jennifer Slegg, CEO, JenSense.com, on how to make the best user friendly website that also monetizes well for you and your advertisers, so you can find the happy medium between a well optimized, user friendly site and one that monetizes well.

Is Your Website Clicking On All Cylinders? -- Are you scratching your head as to how to further improve the SEO or usability of your website? The Express Clinic with Ken Jurina, President and Co-founder, Epiar, will help you get an on the spot audit of your website identifying the good, bad and the ugly. Learn what you're doing right and where there's room for improvement. Some small changes could get you some big results!

For more information about SES Toronto 2009, go to rates and registration details. To follow news about SES Toronto 2009 on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/SES_Toronto.

Or, check out the video interview below. Byron Gordon of SEO-PR talked with Goodman at SES New York earlier this year and asked him to give a sneak preview of SES Toronto.

Andrew Goodman, Page Zero Media, previews SES Toronto 2009

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 8, 2009, 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Submit Your Entries for the 2009 Search Engine Watch Awards

Since 1997, Search Engine Watch (SEW) has been keeping marketers and site owners informed about the world of search engine marketing through daily news and expert advice. Combined with Search Engine Strategies (SES), the leading international conference series, SEW and SES have guided search marketers of all skill levels through the fast changing and complex world of search for more than 10 years.

We're adding to that guidance with the 2009 Search Engine Watch Awards. Submissions open today for these awards, which aim to recognize excellence, as well as inspire innovation and encourage new ideas in search marketing. The SEW Awards will honor outstanding search marketers and vendors, as judged by a panel of industry experts and the Search Engine Watch editorial staff.

There are 14 categories for the 2009 SEW Awards:

• Search Engine with Most Relevant Results
• Most Innovative New Search Engine)
• Best Search Engine Ad Platform
• Technology Platform Search Marketers Can't Live Without
• Best SEM Technology Platform for SMBs
• Best Social Media Platform for Marketers
• Best Web Analytics Platform


• Most Innovative Use of Search Engine Optimization
• Most Innovative Paid Search Campaign
• Best Social Media Marketing Campaign
• Best Business-to-Business Search Marketing Campaign
• Best Use of Local Search
• Best Integration of Search with Other Media
• Most Effective Use of Web Analytics

Entrants may submit nominations for multiple categories, but each submission must focus on the four key areas of consideration:

1. Innovation in methodology and execution
2. Achieving success goals
3. Excellence in tactical execution
4. Overall approach and category relevance

Submissions will be accepted through July 17, 2009. The application fee is $145 per entry.

Winners will be announced at SES San Jose in August. Finalists will be notified by July 27, 2009, and will receive 1-day passes to the show for the day on which the winner in their category is announced.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on June 8, 2009, 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Google Recruiter Confesses Hiring Restrictions, While Yahoo! Aggressively Recruits

Yesterday, we reported on a new antitrust investigation targeting Silicon Valley tech companies regarding possible agreements to not hire away each other's talent. Now, the San Jose Mercury News is reporting that a former Google recruiter is fessing up to having a 'Do Not Touch' list of companies they were not to go after for talent. Two companies on the list? Genentech and Yahoo!

Yahoo!, on the other hand, has no such list according to a former recruiter for the company. Instead, recruiters were rewarded for wooing talent from competitors.

Simply having a list would not be automatically indicative of anticompetitive hiring practices. It could simply be an initiative by a company to prevent upsetting business partners. A 'Do Not Touch' list would be in violation of antitrust law if it were agreed to by companies. It's the collaboration where the offense occurs.

Officially, the companies being investigated and the Department of Justice remain largely mum on the issue, at most confirming that an investigation is, in fact, happening.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 5, 2009, 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Facebook Launches New Payment Terms; Begins Phasing Out Regional Networks

Facebook has launched new Payment Terms to cover purchases made on the social network. Purchases are made to purchase items in the Facebook Gift Shop as well as advertising on Facebook. The Facebook site itself, of course, is free.

The major change in the Payment Terms is the consolidation of payments for Facebook Gift Shop and advertising. Previously, there were two separate methods.

Meanwhile, Facebook is beginning to phase out regional networks. When you're signed into network, it will show which networks you belong to. You usually belong to a school network and possibly a company-based network if you're company is large enough. Facebook also places you in a location-based network. Many of these are so large, they're pointless. For example, I'm in the Raleigh-Durham network, but there's a million people in the area and so it's not so useful for actual networking.

The first phase-out involves the removal of regional networks in your privacy settings and removing regional networks as filters in your News Feed has already occurred. In the next few weeks, the regional option for groups and events will be removed as well. Administrators will see a notification of the change at the top of the pages they manage.

How do you feel about these Facebook updates? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 5, 2009, 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digg to Launch In-House Advertising Platform

In April, Digg pulled out of its advertising contract with Microsoft. There was speculation at the time that Digg would launch its own advertising platform. This week the social bookmarking site announced that rumor will indeed come to fruition.

Digg Ads will launch as a pilot program in a few months. Ads will be in the form of content you would normally see on Digg, but clearly labeled as "sponsored."

Digg members can vote on sponsored content just like they vote on submitted stories. Digg says the more an Ad is Dugg, the less an advertiser will have to pay for it. The more it is buried, the more an advertiser will pay, effectively pricing it out of play.

The platform is in early stages of development. Digg will be working with advertisers and the Digg community to perfect the system.

What do you think of Digg Ads? Share your initial thoughts in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 5, 2009, 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

More Google Updates Than You Can Shake a Stick At

I don't know if Google is trying to distract you from Bing's launch or if it's just that they're just this huge of a company (or more likely both), but they've released a ton of updates on many of their products this week. Today alone, there are 11 updates. Normally, I like to try and give each one a single post, but I don't have that kind of time! So, here they are in consolidated form:

Webmaster Central released a tool called Page Speed which works in conjunction with the Firefox extension Firebug to give suggestions for improving loading time.

Google Analytics is now offering Event Tracking for all accounts.

Chrome, Google's web browser has been released in alpha (that's right, pre-beta) for the Mac. It's definitely not ready for primetime, folks. They're looking for developer feedback on it.

Google Maps improved Street Navigation by allowing double-clicks (the action, not the ad network) to access Street View.

Google Friend Connect has four updates to help developers create widget for the social networking feature.

Google Search, Maps and YouTube are built into the hot new mobile device, Palm Pre.

Android has released Activity and Task Design Guidelines.

YouTube debuted a new political debate tool called Google Moderator, which was recently used in a Virginia gubernatorial democratic primary debate.

Sony has joined VEVO, the online music video project initiated by Universal and YouTube.

An orkut mobile app has been released that should work on most Java-enabled devices.

Picasa Web Albums are now faster without sacrificing image size.

What do you think of all these updates? Which ones get you most excited? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 5, 2009, 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Bing Steals Market Share from Google in First Week

Early stats from Statcounter show Bing taking off in a big way in the United States. As of yesterday, Bing was at 16.28% marketshare while Yahoo! hung out at 10.22% marketshare.

Meanwhile, Google's market share has dropped about 6 points from 78.07% to 71.99%.

Of course, Bing has only been live since Monday. It could just be curiosity. But if people are truly liking Bing, these numbers will be corroborated by comScore and Nielsen data. If that's the case, Bing may be a decision Microsoft got really, really right.

h/t TechCrunch

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 5, 2009, 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

152 Million U.S. Internet Users Watched 16.8 Billion Online Videos in April

comScore has just released April 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, which shows that nearly 152 million U.S. Internet users watched 16.8 billion online videos during the month, representing an increase of 16 percent over March. This means 78.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video in April, and the average online video viewer watched 385 minutes of video, or 6.4 hours.

According to a press release, "A significant increase in video viewing at YouTube during April contributed to the month's sizeable gains."

107.1 million viewers watched 6.8 billion videos on YouTube.com -- which is 63.5 videos per viewer. By comparison, 49 million viewers watched 387 million videos on MySpace.com -- which is 7.9 videos per viewer. About 45.4 million viewers watched 355.2 million videos on Yahoo! Sites -- which is 7.8 videos per viewer. And 40.1 million viewers watched almost 397 million videos on Hulu -- which is an average of 9.9 videos per viewer.

In other words, YouTube not only has an audience that is more than twice as large, this audience also watches six to eight times more videos per month.

At SES London 2009, I interviewed Li Evans about online video. She was with KeyRelevance back then, but is now the Director of Social Media at Serengeti Communications. Li talked about how putting your brand out via YouTube is becoming a new marketing channel for companies.

Li will also be one of the panelists at SES Toronto next week in the session "Optimizing for Video Search: Virgin Territory?" The other panelists will be Gregory Markel, Founder/President, Infuse Creative, LLC, and Amanda Watlington, Owner, Searching for Profit.

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

The moderator of the "Optimizing for Video Search: Virgin Territory?" session will be Mona Elesseily, Director of Marketing Strategy, Page Zero Media. If you go to SES Toronto, remember to compliment Mona for having, "Nice shoes." I forgot at one conference and paid dearly for my oversight.

Mona Elesseily of Page Zero Media and Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR compare their "nice shoes" at SES New York.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 4, 2009, 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Microsoft Debuts New Bing TV Ads; Begins Multi-Channel Promotion

Last night, those of you tolerating watching 'So You Think You Can Dance' were shown the very first broadcast of the new Microsoft television advertising campaign promoting Bing. If you missed it, Bing has a YouTube channel (yes, I know! a YouTube channel! from Microsoft!). Here's one of the new ads:

If you can't watch video right now, the ad depicts a couple discussing future vacation plans. When the wife inquires if her husband found tickets to Hawaii, he starts compulsively spouting off random results he received when searching online. The results aren't helpful at all to their vacation plans. The ad calls this "Search Overload Syndrome" and says that Bing is the cure.

Enid Burns over at ClickZ has all the major details on the new ad campaign. The television campaign surrounding "Search Overload Syndrome" will switch to a more reality-based concept in about two weeks. Bing will begin in-show promotions soon including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Radio advertising will also be a part of the traditional advertising mix.

The television campaign will be complemented with an online ad campaign. Display ads will run on sites like the New York Times and Huffington Post. Meanwhile, Efficient Frontier is managing the search campaign. Yes, you will see ads for Bing on Google. (Try searching "cheap flights" on Google and you should see a Bing search ad.)

Bing is also going after social media. They have their own Bing Community as well as a presence on Facebook.

All of this is part of the estimated $80-100 million ad spend Microsoft is expected to make promoting Bing. That's quite an investment and we'll be awaiting the comScore and Nielsen data over the coming months to see if it's making an impact.

Have you seen any of the new ads for Bing? What do you think of them? Leave a comment and let us know.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 4, 2009, 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Search Companies Part of Fed Antitrust Investigation into Hiring Practices

Do tech companies have a secret agreement not to aggressively hire away talent from each other? That's the question behind a new federal antitrust investigation, and search companies are not immune.

Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft have already received requests for information. Of course, it's easy to understand why companies would want to prevent their talent from heading elsewhere - their secrets just might end up at a competitor's headquarters. Most recently, Jonathan Miller had to wait out his non-compete agreement with AOL before beginning his new role as chief digital officer at NewsCorp.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has hired several people who used to work for Yahoo! Though I'm sure that gets Yahoo!'s goat a little, there hasn't been much of a fuss. Some companies would sue if their talent so quickly jumped ship. (Of course, Microsoft is a big company with other divisions, where the hiring practices could come into question.)

The federal government is increasingly investigating antitrust issues regarding tech and search. Last year, they became quite wary of a search advertising deal between Google and Yahoo! When it became clear the investigation would lead to a lawsuit, Google backed out.

But Google's antitrust problems did not end there. They are currently under investigation for their book settlement and for their ties with Apple. By the way, Apple is another one of the companies being examined in the hiring practices investigation.

Do you think search companies are engaging in anticompetitive hiring practices? Should they be investigated? Let it fly in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 4, 2009, 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SES Names Three New Advisory Board Members

This morning, Search Engine Strategies announced that three new members are joining the SES Advisory Board: Brett Crosby, Group PPM, Google; Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing; and Stewart Quealy, VP, Content Development, Incisive Media.

The three new members are joining 11 current members, who will continue to serve on the SES Advisory Board:
* Matthew Bailey, President, SiteLogic
* Ron Belanger, Vice President of Worldwide Agency Sales, Omniture
* Bryan Eisenberg, Co-Founder, Future Now, Inc
* Jeff Ferguson, Senior Director of Online Marketing, Local.com
* Andrew Goodman, Principal, Page Zero Media
* Mike Grehan, Global KDM Officer, Acronym Media
* Anne Kennedy, Managing Partner, Beyond Ink
* John Marshall, CTO, Market Motive
* Pauline Ores, Senior Marketing Manager, Community and Collaboration Strategy, Global Small & Midmarket Business, IBM
* Erynn Petersen, Senior Manager, Advertising Platform Evangelism, Microsoft
* Randy Peterson, Search Marketing Innovation Manager, Proctor and Gamble

The three new members of the SES Advisory Board replace thee original members who are rotating out:
* Chris Henger, Group Product Manager, Google.
* Jeff Levick, Head of Global Advertising and Strategy, AOL.
* Kevin Ryan, SES Advisory Board Chair and CMO, WebVisible, Inc.

In addition, SES announced that Grehan and Quealy would be co-chairs of the SES Advisory Board.

In a press release, Ryan said, "I enjoyed the years spent with SES and SEW yet the demands on my time are tremendous with WebVisible and the companies I advise. I am so pleased to be passing on the baton to Mike Grehan, SES has a bright future,"

Grehan said, "I'm proud to have been a primary speaker with SES for many years--and even prouder to be taking on this new role with the global advisory board." He added, "I'm much looking forward to working more closely with my friend and colleague Stewart Quealy and the ever innovative SES content team."

Quealy said, "I look forward to working closely with Mike Grehan and the rest of the advisory board in shaping the future direction and ongoing growth of SES."

Now that Ryan has passed the baton to Grehan, the next logical question to ask is: What will Grehan do with the shoehorn that he normally waves around at SES conferences? Will he hold the baton in one hand and the shoehorn in the other? Will Quealy get the shoehorn?

I can't want to find out the answer at SES Toronto 2009 next week.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 4, 2009, 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Mobile App Now Available for Nokia S60 Smartphones

Nokia S60 devices are finally getting a Google Mobile App. They join the iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices. Of course, Android is fully Google-icious.

With the Mobile App for Nokia S60 devices, Google says it's addressing three main issues related to immediacy: access, location, and query formulation. The app can be launched from the home screen and offers quick button links to search, Google Maps, GMail, and Google Mobile services. It also features "My Location" which helps the app return relevant local results. The app also keeps track of search history, serving up past keywords in order to enable repeat queries. Plus, search suggestions are part of the mix as well, to reduce the amount of typing required to search.

This isn't the first Google app to come to the Nokia S60 series. Back in March, a YouTube was released for this set of smartphones as well.

Image via Official Google Mobile Blog.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 4, 2009, 9:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Eric Brown Tapped as Yahoo! SVP of Global Communications

Eric Brown has been appointed by Yahoo! to the role of senior vice president of global communications. Brown is charged with public relations, executive communications, product promotion, public affairs, internal communications, corporate reputation management, as well as social media outreach. He reports to Yahoo! chief marketing officer, Elisa Steele, who joined Yahoo! in late March.

"Our communications strategies and programs for Yahoo!'s key audiences are core to the company's success, and we are very excited that Eric will be joining Yahoo! in this critical role," said Steele. "Eric's extensive track record as a communications leader will be invaluable to our efforts to globally reinvigorate Yahoo!'s brand."

Brown comes to Yahoo! from NetApp, where he was vice president of corporate relations. There, he headed up global communications efforts that spanned 30 countries. NetApp is a data storage solutions company.

Prior to NetApp, Brown headed up public relations efforts for Adaptec, another data storage company.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 4, 2009, 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Q&A with Miriam Warren, Director of Marketing at Yelp

Miriam Warren of Yelp is speaking at SES Toronto on June 9, on the panel "Follow the Carrot: Cool Mobile Apps" in the Geek Track. Miriam is director of marketing for Yelp, and is based in New York. She was gracious enough to respond to my detailed questions.

I have to admit, along with dishing the dirt about the ins and outs of building the Yelp user community, Miriam is possessed of an uncanny instinct for all things Toronto! The pub recommendation of the Village Idiot is inventive and quirky, and the other hotspot recommendations are right on.

Plus, her knowledge of my neighborhood, and the roving reviewer Andre D., is downright spooky! I have the feeling they'll be sitting across from me next time I venture up to the Queen's Pasta Cafe... or helping me try on shoes at the New Balance Store.

Andrew Goodman: Hi Miriam, and a warm welcome to SES Toronto. There is so much to talk about with the explosion of user-generated content, and useful mobile apps that knit together information in a way that directly helps users with the next thing they're about to do: where to begin? Why don't I start with sort of a Canadian question.

Yelp expanded in Canada slowly at first, and has now picked up the pace. Was the growth of Canadian reviews harder to kickstart without local community managers on the ground? When were they added? How important will those be in growing membership and traffic in the future? What are some of the things community managers do?

Miriam Warren: Good questions, and let me take a moment to first explain Yelp's methodology. It's our mission to be an important and useful local resource. We don't expect the awareness of Yelp in San Francisco, for example, to happen overnight in a new city like Toronto.

Our approach is to roll out city by city, instead of a "big bang" launch. That allows us to focus our efforts in our most active cities – a mile deep and an inch wide, if you will – to make Yelp a truly valuable resource to those communities.

This time last year, we launched Yelp Canada. In that time we've definitely seen it embraced by locals, but you're right, having a Community Manager (CM) is an integral part of creating further awareness and in fact, offline events are also a big part of what we do at Yelp. We recently hired two CMs in Canada: one in Vancouver and one right here in Toronto.

When we have that local person on the ground, we have absolutely seen that translate into more engagement on the community side. In fact, I actually used to be the Washington, D.C. community manager, so I can speak very closely to that role! Suffice it to say, these folks wear many hats, whether it's engaging the community both online and off, educating business owners, throwing events, writing the Weekly Yelp and much, much more.

Saying that, we understand that local communities take time to root and grow, and we believe with this approach we allow – if not foster – that.

AG: What kind of growth in metrics (app downloads, memberships, traffic) is Yelp currently experiencing? In Canada, specifically?

MW: We actually don't break metrics out by city or market but I can tell you that in the past 30 days Yelp had over 21 million users to the site worldwide. In terms of the iPhone, we launched our Yelp for iPhone app less than a year ago, and that application alone already accounts for 5 percent of our overall site traffic.

As I mentioned before, Canada is performing exactly as we'd hope. And again, we're seeing engagement from the locals here on a number of levels.

AG: I've just used your app on an iPhone, and the proximity aspect is so vital to the day-to-day experience looking for a restaurant or other local hotspot. So Urban Spoon et al. have some competition to contend with in you guys!

Can you speak to the notion of rank order of results? I know that power users may select different criteria to sort businesses, but especially on a mobile app, most will want a "lazy person's helping hand" with a "smart" relevancy app that can somehow weigh the importance of review quantity, quality, and other factors, without the user having to do anything. Is it harder than it looks to build these sorting algos?

MW: Rank is a great question, and let me clarify that it does differ on a search you might be doing on the site, as opposed to on the iPhone. The main reason behind this is because our iPhone application takes advantage of the device's GPS capabilities to allow us to pull in nearby businesses.

For example, I'm not from Toronto (I live in New York), so if I'm looking for a bar to grab a glass of wine to unwind after this panel, I could whip out my iPhone, hit "nearby," and that search will pull in every business within a 4-block radius. From there, I can further narrow my search by hitting "Bars" and then read reviews, check the ratings and even map directions or call the business.

For the lazy – or perhaps a better way to phrase, the more adventurous person – we also have "Hot on Yelp," which are our community's most bookmarked businesses in the past month, which will also be reflected in the "Nearby" search. It's a great way to try out a buzzed-about local business, whether just-opened or just-discovered.

In terms of building, it was definitely an investment from our end. Our engineers actually had to learn how to code an iPhone app. It has very much been an ongoing effort – especially as more features roll out on the iPhone – but one we think has been worth it! And judging by the popularity, our users think so, too.

AG: How important is critical mass of content to the usefulness of a review site, and why do you think Yelp has been so successful in getting to this point?

MW: As I spoke to a bit earlier, it's very important. A local guide can't be truly useful if there isn't content. If you went to Yelp – or any user-generated reviews site – and there wasn't any information, would you go back? Not likely. Again, that's why we take our time growing each city individually.

Additionally, the content also has to be TRUSTED.

We're very lucky that we have an incredibly vibrant and engaged community – one that definitely transcends geography. We saw a lot of cross-traffic between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, for example, and then later between San Francisco and New York, which has helped foster awareness about the site on a national scale.

We also encourage all contributors to use a real photo and name, and provide facts about themselves on their Yelp page. That way you, the consumer of that content, can tell a lot about who the reviewer is just by reading their reviews, and choose for yourself whether Joe B. in LA might be as picky about getting his haircut as you, or how many other readers found that review useful by votes at the bottom of the review.

We also have a number of other site features that help protect from "spammy" reviews, to ensure the content really is contributed by "real people with real experiences."

AG: Recently, Yelp added functionality for business owners to respond to reviews. In terms of negative reviews, in your personal view is it more powerful for the business owner to respond, or for other happy customers to chime in? Is it both? Does it depend?

MW: Actually, business owners have been able to respond to reviewers via Private Messaging since April of last year, when we first introduced Yelp for Business Owners. That's a free suite of tools that allows businesses to have more of a voice and personality on the site.

Given the positive response, we continued to roll out additional features including a separate page for "About this Business", which allows businesses to provide insight on the owners and specialties, and recommend other businesses. It also gives them the ability to offer announcements, sales and specials.

Over the past year, we noticed that savvy business owners have used the Private Messaging feature effectively, and in many cases were able to open a dialog with their customers that otherwise might not have happened. Of equal importance, they didn't abuse the feature.

We've long considered adding Public Comments, which I believe you were referring to earlier, to the site, but wanted to do it in a thoughtful manner so as not to upset the balance within the Yelp community.

We've been very pleased with the roll out of this feature and have found that business owners have been happy to clarify or correct wrong information that may be posted in a review (menu items, hours of operation, etc.). We see this as a benefit both for consumers reading those reviews as well as the business.

My personal view is that it is CRITICAL for business owners to be a part of the discussion that customers are having about their business. I recommend taking the time to educate yourself on the FAQs, leveraging Yelp for Business Owners, and remembering that the interactions you're having online are just as important – if not more so – than the ones you're having in-person.

AG: So using the Yelp mobile app from my home, I noticed that this guy Andre D. has been all up and down Bloor Street West, reviewing everything in minute detail right down to how other restaurant patrons were dressed, and that the guacamole, salsa, and sour cream were placed on "one side only" of the nacho plate. What is the deal with this guy? Is he for real? A professional comic? You don't have to answer.

MW: Andre D. is one of our newest Elite yelpers, and he's a proud Westender through and through, just like our Toronto community manager, Kat F. Andre lives just west of Bloor West Village, which as you know is a vibrant Ukrainian & Polish community and strip of businesses that includes everything from bakeries and pubs to burger joints and Italian patio cafes.

We love reading Andre's take on the best of the West, as he's loyal to the neighborhood and provides great perspective to the rest of Toronto Yelpers, who may never have ventured out into the area before!

AG: Will you use Yelp to find yourself some local hotspots while you're here? Could you guys pull up some suggested bars and restaurants near the Sheraton Centre at Queen and University, to give our attendees an idea of some places that have positive reviews?

MW: I use Yelp to find local hotspots in every place I travel to, so absolutely I'll use it whilst in Toronto! I've been to Toronto many times since my first visit in 1998 and am quite fond of the city and its people (and am a big fan of both the butter chicken roti at Gandhi and The Drake Hotel.)

Restaurants:

Nota Bene

Great, new-ish romantic restaurant with excellent selection, service and prime location right at the corner of Queen/University. Often suggested for birthday dinners or first dates.

Beer Bistro

Restaurant/bar that's very, very popular among the city's beer aficionados, thanks to its unbelievable beer selection and incorporation of exotic beers into its dishes (chili, ribs, steak, breading/batter, etc.).

Queen Mother Cafe

Thai fusion restaurant that's reputed to have the city's best pad thai. Lots of options for vegetarians and meat eaters alike -- try to order from the list of daily specials if you can. To-die-for cake selection and a really cute secret/secluded patio in the backyard. If you're looking for nightlife, the owner also owns the Rivoli down the street, which serves food but is more of a singer/songwriter jazz club venue.

Bars:

The neighborhood that the Sheraton is in isn't really well known for its local bars -- most of the 'entertainment district' is pricey and not intended for locals. In fact, most people visit from out of town or the suburbs, so your best bet is to hit one of these:

Village Idiot Pub & Grill

Right across from AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), the Village Idiot's been around for eons and attracts lots of different clientele, including students and locals who drool over their "Idiot Fries." They're thick-cut potatoes smothered in a secret sauce that tastes barbequey and zesty at the same time. Friendly and personable service.

Barchef

One of the city's only "cocktail bars." We haven't been here yet, but are looking forward to trying it out thanks to the power of Yelp!

AG: How much does a company like yours rely on a search engine like Google or Yahoo? For organic traffic? Do you use paid search? Is rich data integration (Yahoo SearchMonkey, Google Rich Snippets) an opportunity? Do you see the competition with search engines, who seek to dominate local listings, as posing any threats to companies like Yelp?

MW: Yelp has a very high SEO rating with search engines, including Google and Yahoo. Oftentimes, a business' Yelp listing will show up above a their own website. Saying that, that's really only valuable if you know the EXACT name of that business you're looking for. Yelp is much more of a "discovery" destination for information about your neighborhood or city that you're visiting.

We actually like to think of it as a "problem solver." For example, a consumer needs to find a business that fits her needs, whether it's a mechanic, hairdresser or just a stiff drink. A business owner needs to drive traffic through his door. Yelp serves as the connector for both the consumer and the business owner.

Posted by Andrew Goodman on June 4, 2009, 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New Members Join SES Advisory Board

Three new members are joining the Search Engine Strategies (SES) advisory board, joining 11 current members to guide the future direction of the search marketing conference series.

The new advisory board members are: Brett Crosby, group PPM at Google; Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing; and Stewart Quealy, VP of content development at Incisive Media.

Quealy, the senior person responsible for creating conference program content for the SES events, will also take over as co-chair of the board, along with Mike Grehan, global KDM officer at Acronym Media and SES London conference chairman.

"I'm proud to have been a primary speaker with SES for many years -- and even prouder to be taking on this new role with the global advisory board," Grehan said. "I'm working together with people in the industry I have great respect for. I'm confident we'll continue to maintain Search Engine Strategies' reputation as the leading global search marketing conference series well into the future."

"As a longstanding and dedicated member of the SES content team, I'm happy to play an expanded role in the evolution and continued success of the event series. I look forward to working closely with Mike Grehan and the rest of the advisory board in shaping the future direction and ongoing growth of SES," Quealy said.

The remaining advisory board members include:

• Matthew Bailey, president of SiteLogic
• Ron Belanger, VP of Worldwide Agency Sales at Omniture
• Bryan Eisenberg, co-founder of Future Now, Inc.
• Jeff Ferguson, senior director of online marketing at Local.com
• Andrew Goodman, principal of Page Zero Media and SES Toronto conference chairman
• Anne Kennedy, managing partner at Beyond Ink
• John Marshall, CTO of Market Motive
• Pauline Ores, senior marketing manager, community and collaboration strategy, global small & midmarket business, IBM
• Erynn Petersen, senior manager, advertising platform evangelism, Microsoft
• Randy Peterson, search marketing innovation manager at Proctor and Gamble

"We want to thank three of our original advisory board members, who are now rotating out of the lineup, as well as welcome three new members who are joining the SES Advisory Board as we chart our way in this ever-changing industry," said Matt McGowan, VP and publisher for Incisive Media.

The members of the SES Advisory Board who are rotating out are:

• Chris Henger, group product manager at Google
• Jeff Levick, head of global advertising and strategy at AOL
• Kevin Ryan, CMO of WebVisible, Inc.

"I enjoyed the years spent with SES and SEW, yet the demands on my time are tremendous with WebVisible and the companies I advise," said Ryan, the outgoing SES Advisory Board chairman. "I am so pleased to be passing on the baton to Mike Grehan. SES has a bright future."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on June 4, 2009, 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hulu Wants to Rot Your Wallet

Hulu has made no secret of their plan to rot your brain. But apparently the motivation behind it is so that you'll unwittingly shell out moolah to pay to watch vids there in the future.

At least, this is the opinion of NewsCorp's brand spankin' new chief digital officer, Jonathan Miller. He's been out there expressing his hope for putting Hulu content behind a pay wall. (NewsCorp was one of the original partners in Hulu, with NBC being the other. Disney, which owns ABC, recently joined the gang.)

Of course, Miller's boss, Rupert Murdoch has recently been loud and clear on his intent to monetize newspaper websites via a pay wall. Call me crazy, but that's been tried and it didn't work. I remember not being able to read a full story unless I shelled out a subscription or one time fee. I didn't. It's too easy to find out about news for free (say, on Twitter).

With television, it's different, but in a worse way for the networks. People are either already shelling out a ton for their cable bundles and Satellite dishes. Others either can't afford them or simply choose not to have a premium television experience, so why would they pay for it online?

Of course, you don't even need cable to watch NBC, FOX, and ABC shows (those are the three major networks featured on Hulu).

Mix in the ever-increasing popularity of DVRs and you have the perfect storm of reasons to avoid paying for Hulu.

Media companies are certainly in a conundrum. Consumers have come to expect rather immense amounts of content online for free. All they have to do is put up with some irrelevant ads.

But their answer doesn't lie in charging consumers directly. It lies in improving display advertising. It lies in convincing search marketers that their search ROI actually improves when complemented with a display campaign.

Instead, media conglomerates seem intent on passing on their problems directly to the consumer instead of actually figuring them out.

Am I wrong? Is my brain rotted on this matter? Tell me how it is in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 4, 2009, 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New Dictionary.com Ad Offering Combines Keywords with Display Ads, Plus Homepage Takeover

If you go to Dictionary.com today or tomorrow, you'll notice a homepage takeover ad by Toyota featuring their hybrid Prius vehicle. It's part of a 2-day ad blitz campaign Toyota is conducting on the popular word lookup site, which sees 35 million visitors per month.

You'll also see display ads when you look up one of 100 words that Toyota chose to associate with the Prius. It's a new offering that Dictionary.com is offering brands and it has the potential to be quite a significant one.

This type of ad campaign takes keywords from the realm of ROI to branding. That may seem backwards, but there are a few things to consider.

Let's say a visitor to Dictionary.com searches for "hybrid." They're already searching and the ad they see is relevant. Other sites where you might see display ads (i.e.newspaper sites), visitors are consuming but not necessarily searching.

We also know that display ads drive people to search. So while the ROI may not always be as impressive with display alone (compared to search), combining display and search is significantly more powerful than search or display alone.

Also, when people are learning a new word, they may associate it with the brand that's being advertised on the page. This is genius if you're Toyota and you want consumers to associate the word hybrid with their Prius. You can imagine how many brands will want to be visible to associate their product with the initial learning of a word.

Some of the keywords Toyota chose are obvious such as hybrid, environment, or sustainability. Other words evoke a feeling that Toyota wants to associate with the Prius including happiness, comfort and style.

The homepage takeover part of the campaign is a first for Dictionary.com. Of course, Dictionary.com was acquired last year by Ask.com, which recently ran a homepage takeover featuring the Night at the Museum sequel. Ask.com says the campaign was "extremely successful" so it's no surprise to see Dictionary.com trying it out, too.

What do you think of this ad blitz? Is it something your brand would be interested in trying? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 3, 2009, 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Squared is Live!

A few weeks ago, Google announced a forthcoming search computation project called Google Squared. It's now live at http://www.google.com/squared (h/t Google Blogoscoped). Go explore your deepest need for knowledge via the spreadsheet results provided by Google Squared.

Warning: This search is terribly imperfect. A search for Dunkin' Donuts flavors returned a single row: coffee. And while DD coffee is really good, I wanted a spreadsheet of the different kinds of donuts they offer.

However, searching for the different types of thyroid cancer was, at least, moderately more productive.

As always, go check it out for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 3, 2009, 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Microsoft's adCenter Team Answers Your ProBING Questions

One of the biggest ponderings regarding the rebranding of Live Search to Bing has been: "How will this affect adCenter?" The adCenter team finally took to its blog to address this timely question.

And the answer is.....drum roll please....It will not change adCenter at all. The number of ads shown will remain the same. The mainline ad rules remain the same. Ad position will not change (at least not just because of a rebrand - your bidding is what affects your ad position). There will not be any new ad units.

The algorithm changes, but even that's not a change because they're constantly changing the algorithm. Still with me?

What could change is an increase in traffic. With all the buzz surrounding Bing and Microsoft's $80-100 million ad campaign for the new search engine, your ads might get some action.

Let us know if you're seeing any traction on your adCenter ads. Share what you can in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 3, 2009, 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

YouTube Optimizes for Large Screen Viewing

If you like watching YouTube videos in full screen or on your TV, you now have a new option: YouTube XL. Like finally admitting you need to go up a size in your wardrobe, YouTube XL is a good fit for larger screens.

The text is larger. There's a dark background. If you look at it from your desktop, you'll think YouTube was inspired by a phone with large buttons - you know the one your grandma has sitting in her living room. (This wouldn't be a bad idea, of course. As we know, granny is all up in the YouTube.)

You can still search as well as view by top rated or most viewed. There's also a continuous play mode where you can just keep streaming vids in a given topic. Some of you, depending on your set up, will even be able to control your YouTube XL via Bluetooth remote control or mobile apps.

Check out YouTube XL and then let us know your first impressions in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 3, 2009, 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Search Appliance 6.0 Searches Documents by the Billions

Google is releasing a new version of the software that runs on Search Appliance. Version 6.0 can search billions of documents. They're also releasing a new hardware Search Appliance that can search 30 million documents.

Google Search Appliance can be deployed to search billions of documents in 5 racks of about 10-12 GSA's each. A little over a year ago, it took a 5 box rack to search 10 million documents. So, you can see how the progress is coming fast and furious.

Google Search Appliance is an enterprise solution that enables companies to search internal documents or provide site search for websites.

The announcement of Version 6.0 comes with a Google-made video that has the look and feel of a Spanish-language soap opera:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 3, 2009, 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

GM Won't Come Back from Bankruptcy, If Searches are Any Indication

Hitwise has released disturbing data on searches for GM brands. As, I'm sure you're aware, GM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this past Monday and the spin from the company is that they hope to come back. But if searches are any indicator, that hope isn't based in reality.

There is a steady decline in searches for Chevrolet, Saturn, Pontiac and GMC since May 2006.

None of the brands show up in the Top Ten automotive brand searches. Chevrolet comes closest, clocking in at #12.

1. Toyota
2. Honda
3. Ford
4. Nissan
5. Hyundai
6. Dodge
7. Kia
8. Suzuki
9. Volkswagon
10. Jeep

Even worse for GM is that the keyword variations surrounding their searches have to do with financial information - things like stock price, bankruptcy, and bondholder interest.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 3, 2009, 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Search Update for June 2009 Underway

If you're noticing some change in your Yahoo! rankings, you're not alone. Yahoo! announced that they're rolling out an index update. If you've noticed any changes, do share in the comments.

These announcements are always vague and short, so I've called upon Keyboard Cat to play this post off....

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 3, 2009, 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Launches Local Search Application for Android

"Places Directory" is a new app for Android that finds businesses that are close to your location. The app will list various business categories, such as restaurants, hotels and banks. Click on a category and get a listing with distance and star ratings. Click on an individual listing to see reviews and photos.

The app is available in the Android Market and initially supports English and Chinese. "Places Directory" is a Google Labs product.

The application was developed by Taipei Software Engineer Aries Hsieh and fellow Googlers in their 20% time. Hsieh says the inspiration came from his travels to Google headquarters in Mountain View. While visiting, he would try to check out new restaurants, but would also need to know where businesses such as banks were located.

Image via Official Google Mobile blog.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 3, 2009, 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Training Workshops Offered Following SES Toronto Conference

This just handed me: Search Engine Strategies is offering search engine marketing training workshops following next week's SES conference and expo in Toronto. In case you've been pre-occupied by other news and events, the largest search engine marketing conference and expo in Canada will be held at the Sheraton Centre Toronto June 8-10, 2009.

According to the folks at comScore, there were 3.5 billion expanded searches in Canada during March 2009. Google Sites had an 80.7 percent share, Microsoft Sites had 4.9 percent, and Yahoo! Sites 4.5 percent. During the same month, there were 21.0 billion expanded searches in the United States. Google Sites had a 58.8 percent share, Yahoo! Sites had a 14.7 percent share, and Microsoft Sites a 5.9 percent share.

The event 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, "These workshops provide the practices, applications, and hands-on exposure you need to become and remain a top performer in your field. This in-depth training in a small class setting ensures that your instructor is accessible for informal one-on-one or small group discussions. Regardless where you are in the SEO and SEM process, you will leave these intensive workshops with the necessary skills to improve your business results and take your search engine marketing to another level."

The SEM training workshops will be held on Wednesday, June 10, 2009. They are:

Search Marketing Boot Camp (8:00am-5:00pm): This search engine marketing training workshop will be taught by Jennifer Evans Laycock and Matt Bailey of SiteLogic. With search engine marketing quickly expanding beyond the simple realm of keyword research, on-page optimization and traditional paid search campaigns, it's becoming more and more difficult for businesses to know how and where to break into the mix with their own search related marketing efforts. If you are planning on attending Search Engine Strategies Toronto, but are not yet familiar with the nuances of search engine marketing, link building, viral marketing and online reputation management, this workshop will provide you with a crash-course in all things search marketing related.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop (8:00am-12:00pm): This SEO training workshop will be taught by Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive. A search-engine friendly Web site is a user-friendly, search-friendly, and persuasive site that converts visitors into buyers. In order for a site to be search-engine friendly, it must meet the terms and conditions set forth by Google and the other search engines. Additionally, the site must satisfy the needs of site visitors. Ultimately, the site must be profitable for the Web site owner. Can a single site satisfy all of these groups? This workshop will demonstrate that these skills are essential for building a user-friendly, search-friendly, and persuasive site that converts visitors into buyers.

Google AdWords Tactics to Improve Your ROI (1:00pm-5:00pm): This Google AdWords training workshop will be taught by Brad Geddes, bgTheory.com. Learn how to spice up your AdWords account by applying tactics learned in this session. You will first dive into the Psychology of Search that shows how consumers think and act throughout the search process. Next, you will learn how to choose the correct keywords to take control of when your ad is displayed. Then, you will study how effective ad copy can generate more clicks and increase your conversion rate. The landing page is fundamental to increasing conversions, and the session will cover usability and conversion optimization. Finally, you will learn everything you need to know about optimizing your account for Quality Score.

For more information about SES Toronto 2009, go to rates and registration details. Tell them the hoser from the Search Marketing News Blog at Search Engine Watch sent you. No, it won't get you a discount. But it will let me know if anyone is reading this post.

Participants may register for training in addition to the SES Toronto conference or independently, as workshops take place on the Wednesday after the event. To follow news about SES Toronto 2009 on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/SES_Toronto.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 3, 2009, 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Denver's Affiliate Convention Is A Free For All: Free Attendance, Free Parties

Affiliate Convention is using an interesting approach to their first conference - being held June 17-20th if you include the social activities - at Denver's Convention Center. All affiliates get in free with the companies they act as affiliates for picking up the tab.

The idea of the affiliates who bring the traffic to vendors at their own expense and get paid when a conversion happens is a smart one. The event is a give back for all the branding that the affiliates achieve that in many cases does not convert directly to them.

Affiliate Convention will deliver fun and productive networking opportunities, including the first annual affiliate charity golf tournament where attendees will play while enjoying a day of relaxed networking with other affiliates and affiliate managers. Nighttime brings more community events like the opening party sponsored by Affiliate.com and WebmasterRadio.FM's AffiliateBash.

"We've been working to build a line-up of speakers and sessions that brings ideas, knowledge and information targeted towards affiliate marketers," said agenda organizer Jim Hedger, "We also want to create a dynamic and excited crowd for sponsors and exhibitors to meet and network with. We're coming into the last two weeks before the convention and it looks like we're going to meet and exceed our goals for the first show."

It is an impressive list of web who's who in attendance and I plan on going just for the awesome parties Brandy Babin throws. So see you at the bash.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 2, 2009, 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Twitter Blocked By Great Firewall of China

Seems the Chinese government is not a fan of Twitter. Access to the social media site has been blocked in China, according to ASSME.

Free speech is not an option in China and the blocking of Twitter is another instance of this. One wonders what impact this will have on the user numbers globally. Over a third of the world's population lives in China and they represent a major growth area for the internet.

One of these days someone will create a Wireless Free broadcasting platform, similar to RadioFree America used to send radio into Communist countries and possibly an influence on the fall of the Soviet and Eastern Bloc system.

Might have to discuss the topic with Daron Babin of Webamster Radio when I see him at Affiliate Convention in Denver.

Posted by Frank Watson on June 2, 2009, 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Acer to Launch Android-Powered Netbook; T-Mobile to Offer Second Android Device

Coming late this summer or early this fall is a new Acer netbook that will be powered by Android, Google's mobile operating system. This will be the first official netbook with Android running on it. Of course, we've seen hacking of netbooks with Android in the past, showing the obvious desire to see this provided for consumers. Looks like it's finally happnening.

If you're not familiar, netbooks are mini laptops, usually ranging from 7-12 inches. Many of them run on Windows XP or Linux. Netbooks are designed for people on the go. You may notice mobile carriers such as Verizon offering broadband internet deals for netbooks. I've seen deals where you pay $99 for the netbook with a 2-year contract at about $60 a month. It's very similar to purchasing a mobile phone.

Of course, Android's first venture was on the T-mobile/Google co-branded phone, the G1, which is manufactured by HTC. T-Mobile's second Android device is expected "early this summer" according to the blogosphere. Since it is essentially early summer, might the new phone be out any day now? Details are still vague, so stay tuned.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 2, 2009, 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Releases AdWords Editor 7.5.1 for Windows and Mac

Google has released a new version of its AdWords Editor and there are some new features to look forward to.

CSV import has been added. Google says this was requested by many advetisers. Making changes on a spreadsheet or custom app can now be imported.

Next is the ability to download selected campaigns. You no longer have to endure long waits while your entire account downloads. Just select the campaigns you wish to download and go about your business.

The Keyword Opportunities feature has been updated. You can now sort by topical category. Also, when you export or copy keywords, the Keywords Opportunity column is now included.

Sort data by up to 3 columns.

A new Keyword Count column allows you to sort by number of keywords.

Resume account download prevents download progress from being lost is a download is interrupted for some reason.

A progress bar will let you know where you are at in the process of a given task in AdWords Editor.

You can select duplicates in order of appearance.

Usage tracking gives you the opportunity to share anonymous data in order to improve AdWords Editor.

New languages in this version include:

• Thai
• Arabic
• Romanian
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Greek
• Vietnamese
• Bulgarian
• Croatian
• Lithuanian
• Estonian
• Slovak
• Filipino
• Slovenian
• Serbian
• Catalan
• Latvian
• Ukranian
• Hindi

What do you think of AdWords Editor 7.5.1?

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

Minutes Online: Facebook, Tagged and Twitter Soars While MySpace Struggles

Nielsen Online has released new data showing minutes spent on social networks for the month of April 2009. Compared to April 2008, most of the top 10 social networks are seeing skyrocketing growth while MySpace sees a decline.

The news is not all bad for MySpace. Video is its silver lining. MySpace topped the list of networks for most minutes streaming video (384 million) and average minutes per viewer (38.8). While MySpace is already a YouTube competitor, perhaps it should reposition itself as more aligned with video? (Share your thoughts on that below in the comments).

Of course, Facebook topped the list of overall minutes. A site to watch is Tagged.com, which is seeing more engagement that Twitter, which gets a ton of buzz. And Google's Blogger enjoyed a steady 30% annual growth.

Here's the chart comparing total engagement from April 2008 to April 2009:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 2, 2009, 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Twitter's Glass Ceilings and Its 90/10 Problem

New Twitter stats from the Harvard Business School reveal interesting demographics surrounding the popular social chat network. Unlike other social networks, it's very male-centric and it's more like Wikipedia than Facebook. Let's dive into the data.

Men are more likely to follow men and have reciprocal relationships. Women are also more likely to follow men, despite women making up the majority of Twitter users at 55%.

Men also have 15% more followers than women.

It's the exact opposite on other social networking sites. Generally, both men and women are more likely to follow content produced by women.

But it's the top Twitterers who really tempt the Fail Whale. 90% of Tweets are written by 10% of the most prolific Twitterers. About half of Twitter users are tweeting just once every 74 days.

In most social networks, 10% of the top content producers account for 30% of all content produced.

Twitter is more like Wikipedia, whose top 15% contributors produce 90% of the content. The study's authors, Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski, suggest that Twitter is a one-to-many conversation tool like Wikipedia rather than it is a peer-to-peer social network.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 2, 2009, 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Google Maps Launches New Local Business Center Dashboard

You know that online maps and local listings can drive searchers to your business, but they don't always visit your website. All the web analytics in the world can't track that.

Google Maps is making it easier by launching a new dashboard in their Local Business Center. The dashboard can help local businesses understand how users are interacting with their local listings in Google Maps.

Here's what to expect:

• Impressions will tell users how many times the business listing appeared as a result in a search of Google.com search or Google Maps during a given period.
• Actions will show the number of times searchers interacted with a listing. One example is the number of driving directions requests.
• Top search queries shows which keywords drove searchers to a business listing.
• Zip codes will be listed to show where driving directions were requested from.

Get a preview of the new dashboard by watching this video introduction from the Google Lat/Long Team.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 2, 2009, 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In Today's Global Recession, Flat Is The New Up

A bunch of us SES conference speakers happen to be in Washington, D.C., this week speaking at the Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) conference. This includes Matt Bailey, President of SiteLogic, Bill Barnes, Co-founder and Executive Vice President of Enquiro Search Solutions Inc., Nan Dawkins, Founder and CEO of Serengeti Communications, and me.

It's not hard to figure out how this happened. The chair of the Online Marketing Track is Rory Brown, chair of SIPA UK, who is the former chairman of Incisive Media. Yes, it's a small, small world.

During the cocktail reception last night, our group gathered to compare notes -- and one of the observations that bubbled up was this: "In today's global recession, flat is the new up."

In other words, we all overheard specialized information publishers asking their colleagues, "How's business?" If one of those colleagues said, "Flat," then the other specialized information publishers were impressed.

Nevertheless, as they gathered for their 33rd annual international conference, even those who had remained flat during the steepest US recession in 50 years are more than ready for the economic recovery.

This hope that the worse is behind us was reinforced by the luncheon speaker: Andrew Madden of Google. His address was entitled, "How Google Can Support Specialized Publishers in 2009."

Madden talked about the different ways Google has been working with publishers to support their business models -- whether they be ad-supported or premium content. With the current economic downturn depressing even online advertising, more and more specialized publishers are looking at pay-per-view mechanisms or ways they can charge for online content.

Madden discussed how Google is expanding into areas like content digitization in partnereships with publishers and how that can result in a new source of online revenue and brand awareness. He also pointed out that using Google's free Webmaster Tools could help publishers improve their visibility on Google.

No, the audience didn't burst out singing, "Happy Days Are Here Again." But, for a group that has been saying, "Flat is the new up" for the past 12 months, I could sense that they were ready for the time when "Flat is so last year."

My, that will sound good.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 2, 2009, 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

iPhone Safari Browser to Integrate Geolocation

Computerworld (CW) has the goods on news involving the mobile Safari browser that Apple includes on the iPhone prepping to include geolocation. This means you won't have to type in your zip code or hopefully not have to be asked a million times if an app can use your location.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The possibilities for advertising and search are enormous. Targeted ads and results could use location via the browser. This could really be a huge boost for advertisers and yes, consumers. Better ads = more conversions for advertisers and better info on local stuff for consumers. And whichever search engine serves up the most relevant, local results could see a boon as mobile search continues to rise.

iPhone's Safari browser isn't the only one interested in geolocation. According to CW, most browsers are heading in this direction.

Privacy concerns are sure to arise, but hopefully the browsers will include the option to turn off geolocation should a user wish to keep their location super-private.

What do you think of geolocation in browsers? Let us know in the comments below.

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

Google's Blogger Makes Search Box Available to All Users

Google's blogging platform Blogger has taken its Search Box feature out of "Blogger in Draft" and made it available to all users. The Search Box is a gadget that enables readers to search a blog's posts, web pages linked from the blog, a blog's lists, and link lists.

Search Box automatically detects new posts that it can incorporate into the search results. The gadget also picks up on a blog's style and colors. Search Box uses AJAX Search APIs to create a tight look that integrates well with the blog. Custom Search helps serve up the results.

In order to add the Search Box...

1. Log into Blogger
2. Select the blog you wish to add the Search Box to
3. Click on "Layouts"
4. Go to "Add a Widget"
5. Choose "Search Box

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 1, 2009, 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Social Profile Sites, Mobile Social Networking More Popular than Twitter Among 18-24 Year Olds

Twitter may be enjoying some nice traffic trends in recent months, but they're going to have to work harder to win over 18-24 year olds. Sites like Facebook and MySpace along with mobile social networking fare much better with this demographic.

99% of those surveyed say they have a profile on a social networking site. 89% have downloaded an application on that site. 89% have also used the photo features while 53% have played games on the site.

That's much more than the 22% who are using Twitter.

38% of this demographic have an iPhone or an iPod touch. Of those, 53% play games, 35% use entertainment apps and 31% use lifestyle apps. 26% don't use any apps.

The data was released by the Participatory Marketing Network (PMN). The study was conducted in May 2009 and included 200 participants. The Lubin School of Business' Interactive and Direct Marketing (IDM) Lab at Pace University partnered with PMN for the study.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 1, 2009, 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Bing's Best Features are the Ones You Didn't Know Existed on Live Search

If you weren't using Live Search (and let's face it, most of you weren't) then you're likely to be a little more impressed than you should be with Bing. Sure, Bing has great new features, but Live Search featured a bunch of cool stuff and you'll be kicking yourself when you realize you haven't been using them.

Image Search infinite scrolling means you never have to click to another page when you're searching for photos and graphics. The more you scroll, the more Live Search and now Bing keeps loading images related to your search.

A myriad of filtering options also accompanies Image Search, including size, color, layout and style.

Video search preview lets users mouse over video results and get a 30-second preview directly in the results.

ClearFlow is a mapping feature that offers up alternative routes when there's heavy traffic.

Local search is very comprehensive. If you conduct a general search for say, coffee shop, as you scroll down the results page, the map on the right sidebar scrolls with you. Once you click on a result, you get one-click directions, reviews, and nearby business categories. If you search for a restaurant, you'll see a visual scorecard letting which summarizes reviews the eatery has received.

Instant answers is a feature we've covered a lot on this blog, and Microsoft does it very well. Sports scores, shopping and travel are all categories getting the instant answer treatment. Want a quick status on flight? Type the airline and flight number into the search box and you'll get immediate details on where the flight is directly in the results.

Speaking of travel, Farecast, which Microsoft acquired last year, rocks. It's rebranded as Bing Travel. These days, there aren't too many variations in price on travel search. But Farecast's strength is displaying deals and predicting whether airfares will rise or fall. You can set up email alerts to know what hot deals are out there.

Last fall, Microsoft incorporated Farecast flight search with Instant Answers in Live Search. You'll get the same experience with Bing.

Microsoft has had a lot to offer in terms of search and it's not just starting now with Bing. Dive in and see what you find. Then come back and share your favorite features in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 1, 2009, 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ex-Googler Yoelle Maarek Becomes a Purple Person

In 2006, Yoelle Maarek founded the Google Haifa Engineering Center. While there, her team contributed such features as Google Suggest, Searching Ads, and Interactive Annotations on YouTube.

Maarek left Google and will now lead the Yahoo! Lab in Haifa with Ronny Lempel. The lab was opened in March 2008.

Prior to her Google gig, Maarek worked for IBM Research both in New York and Haifa. Maarek received her undergrad and grad degrees in Paris and later her PhD from Technion in Haifa. During her PhD studies, she also was a visiting student at Columbia University in New York.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 1, 2009, 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Adds Nearest Intersection to GOOG-411

If you've ever called an information service, you know you can get an address and a phone number. And, of course, many times you can get patched through instead of having to remember the phone number. But simply getting an address isn't necessarily helpful.

Now, GOOG-411 is offering up nearest intersection to help people find their way. You can imagine how this would be useful if the address given was on a long road. For some, it also might be easier to remember an intersection than a specific address.

For example, here in Raleigh, if I were to get the address of a business on Glenwood Avenue, it would make a big difference if the nearest intersection was Glenwood/Peace Street as opposed to Glenwood/Brier Creek Parkway. It would be a 20-45 minute difference depending on traffic.

Also, businesses closer to the Glenwood/Brier Creek end of things would have a higher number address, which could potentially be more difficult to remember than the ones near Peace Street, where Glenwood begins.

What do you think of this update? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 1, 2009, 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bing is Live (no pun intended)

Forget June 3rd. You can search Bing now. Also, at 10am PST today, you can attend an online session where the Bing team will show off all the features. Click here to attend.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on June 1, 2009, 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

SES Toronto Adds Copywriting, Landing Page and Twitter Sessions

SES Toronto gets underway June 8-10, 2009, at the Sheraton Centre Toronto. With just a week to go, largest search engine marketing conference in Canada today announced the addition of copywriting, landing page and Twitter sessions to the already packed conference agenda.

The event 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.

In a press release distributed this morning, Goodman says, "Although most of the conference agenda was set months ago, we kept a couple of slots open for sessions that covered topics that needed to be addressed. I'm excited that we found one for each of our concurrent tracks: Nuts & Bolts, Corporateville, and Geek Track."

The three new conference sessions are:

Copywriting: 45-Minute Boot Camp: Copywriting requires special skills in the search marketing world. Writing ads for paid search requires three parts science, two parts audience research, and at least one part creativity. SEO copywriting requires a mix of skills, including an understanding of the balance between a natural flow, and the importance of keyword research. And improving conversion rates on landing pages may require testing long versus short copy, headlines, benefits copy, tone, call-to-action text, and more. Our experts share their top tips to maximize your search campaign performance by choosing the right words to connect with customers and bots alike.

Search Ads & Landing Page Clinic: Does your PPC ad make a promise that your landing page can't keep? Make sure that your ad copy and landing page contents are in alignment to ensure a smooth and profitable visitor experience. This clinic will examine actual ads and landing pages offered up by volunteers from the audience.

The Ins & Outs of Twitter: Of all emerging social media platforms, Twitter is perhaps the most talked (or should we say tweeted) about today. Coming seemingly out of nowhere, Twitter's exemplary ability to offer real-time search capability is shaking up the search world. And surely, retweets, follower counts, and mentions on Twitter should be factored into the search algorithms of the very near future. There are also downsides and even dark sides to improper use. Panelists discuss, with a longer Q&A period to take your posts, as submitted on Twitter to #sestortweet.

Goodman likes to remind me that the search engine market in Canada is similar but different than the one in the United States. For example, Google received 80.2 percent of all Canadian searches conducted in the 12 weeks ending April 25, 2009, according to Hitwise. MSN search properties, Yahoo! search properties and Ask search properties received 8.8 percent, 7.3 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively. By comparison, Google accounted for 72.7 percent of all U.S. searches conducted during that period, according to Hitwise. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 16.3 percent, 5.7 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively.

At SES New York, Byron Gordan of SEO-PR asked Goodman to provide a preview of SES Toronto. Goodman said he expects many new faces to the search marketing field to attend this year's conference.

Andrew Goodman, Page Zero Media, previews SES Toronto 2009

For more information about SES Toronto 2009, go to rates and registration details. To follow news about SES Toronto 2009 on Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/SES_Toronto.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on June 1, 2009, 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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