Back to Main

November 2009

Google News Updates Mobile Site for iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre

Google has made some enhancements to its mobile news site. The updates are just for the iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre.

The look and feel is pretty much the same. What's new is more stories, sources, and images.

A new "Jump to" link brings a pop up box offering quick access to a specific news category.

Any personalizations you make on your desktop will be accessible via your mobile now, as well (as long as you're signed into the same account on both).

Screenshots:

News.Google.com on an iPhone

Jump to

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 20, 2009, 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yahoo! Adds Tweets, Breaking News to News Shortcut

After announcements from Google and Bing about incorporating Twitter into their search results, Yahoo! is throwing hopping on the real-time results news bandwagon. Yahoo!'s Twitter integration is part of a new update when the News Shortcut is implemented in the search results.

Yahoo! is also recognizing when there's breaking news and indicating as such on the News Shortcut. Here's a screenshot of a search for the space shuttle Atlantis shortly after launch earlier this week (per the Yahoo! Search blog):

What do you think of these updates to the Yahoo! News shortcut? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 20, 2009, 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Twitter Consults the Ghost of Fred Berry for New Status Prompt

Twitter has announced that the question that appears in the status update box will no longer be "What are you doing?" Now, it will be "What's happening?"

My immediate reaction was this (and I wasn't the only one):

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 20, 2009, 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Tests Permanent Sidebar for Results, Blue Submit Buttons for Homepage

Lately, Google is experimenting more than Sheldon Cooper on their homepage - and now, also on their search results.

They're testing a permanent left sidebar in their search results, which would turn the results into three columns: new sidebar, organic results, search ads. Hmm, this reminds us of Bing. And Bing reminded us of Ask's 3D design (which they've since abandoned).

Additionally, after experimenting with removing the submit buttons on the homepage, now Google is bringing back the buttons and testing them with a new color: bright, primary blue.

In the Google help forums, two screenshots of these experiments were posted:

New Sidebar

Blue Buttons on Homepage

via Google Blogoscoped

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 20, 2009, 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

YouTube Launches Automatic Captions; Great for Accessibility and Search

YouTube is introducing machine-generated automatic captioning to YouTube. The captions can also be translated. This obviously has incredible implications for the hearing-impaired and language translation. But it also has great implications for search.

Automatic captions will be generated using Google's automated speech recognition (ASR) technology and the same voice recognition algorithms used in Google Voice.

Additionally, auto-timing is being introduced. If you provide all the words in the video, Google will automatically time the captioning for you.

Of course, having what essentially amounts to transcripts for online video means that the text can be crawled and indexed and then yes - SEARCHED. Bring on the keyword research and seo scriptwriting for online videos!

Google put together a video on how to access the automatic captioning and auto-timing features:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 19, 2009, 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Hunch Unveils New Design for Homepage

Hunch, the "decision engine" launched shortly after Bing (another "decision engine") has updated the design on their homepage. Check out the new digs:

When Hunch launched, there was a single task presented on the homepage - to begin answering a series of questions to "teach" Hunch about you. The idea is that the more Hunch knows about you, the better decisions they can offer up.

This new design seems more engaging, giving users a few more options on how they would like to participate on the site.

What do you think of Hunch's redesign? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 19, 2009, 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

AdWords Creates Easier Access to Advanced Performance Data

When using AdWords, in order to access some advanced performance data, you had to create reports, which can be time consuming. AdWords is making access to certain data points easier by integrating them into the campaign management.

For example, instead of running a placement performance report to manage automatic placements, you can use the "Networks tab." Instead of running a search query report, you can select the "See search terms" option under the Keywords tab.

AdWords also recently introduced time-based segmentation. Use this to break down your data by day, week, month, or year to understand changes in your campaign's performance.

Segmenting by day of the week is also available, which can be advantageous for ad scheduling.

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

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 19, 2009, 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

AOL to Nix 2,500 Jobs; Asks for Volunteers

AOL is looking to cut 2,500 jobs. Before they go through the tough choice of choosing who to let go, they're asking if anyone wants to volunteer to get the axe.

Oh, how I've been there and oh, how this sucks for AOL-ers. Goodbye, productivity. Hello, everyone trying to figure out if they're safe.

At least the process seems to have a defined endpoint. AOL says they expect to incur $200 million in costs from "re-structuring" and that those costs will incur before the December 9 spinoff date.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 19, 2009, 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AdGooroo Unveils Academic Program Featuring Free Tools for Educators

AdGooroo is launching a new academic program that provides free resources to educators wishing to teach their students about search marketing. The program provides free academic licenses to AdGooroo's SEM Insight.

"Supporting the academic community is a top priority for AdGooroo, and we're offering them free access to SEM Insight, our flagship research tool. Commercial users are paying at least $399 a month to use this tool," said AdGooroo Founder and CEO, Rich Stokes. "It's important to AdGooroo and me personally to cultivate the understanding of accountable online advertising and particularly search advertising at the student level. We'd like to serve as a helpful resource to academic departments and professors around the globe."

The University of Chicago is one of the first educational institutions to sign up for the program.

"Search engines and the Web in general have had a huge impact on the world around us, and this partnership program not only helps the University of Chicago expose students to the world of Internet advertising. It allows us to submerge them into actual marketer campaigns and let them see for themselves what a competitive channel online advertising has become," said Linda Darragh, Clinical Associate professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago's Polsky Center of Entrepreneurship. "Having access to resources like these from AdGooroo enables us to provide this experience for students and take the lesson from figurative to real world."

The program is open to faculty and staff, both part and full-time, that work at a qualifying educational institution, such as public and private vocational schools, correspondence schools, colleges and universities. The institution must have been accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 18, 2009, 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Boost eLearning Provides Course on New Google Search Features

Boost eLearning provides search training for organizations, so that employees can conduct efficient searches for their business research. Now, Boost eLearning has unveiled a new course featuring Google's new search features.

The new course explores the new "show options" feature which allows searchers to filter their searches by time and type.

"A large percentage of enterprise employees use Google for business research," said Victor D. Alhadeff, CEO of Boost eLearning. "Enterprises therefore gain significant benefits when they help employees learn a greater portion of Google's powerful search features. With a few minutes of easy online training dramatically improving both search speed and accuracy, employees and employers both come out winners."

With knowledge workers spending an average of 30 minutes searching, courses like this can help employees streamline their search activity and increase productivity. 40% of searches do not return a desired result, and learning these new features could help reduce that number.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 18, 2009, 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

iPerceptions Launches New Interactive Dashboard Compatible with Web Analytics Programs

iPerceptions has launched a new integrated web analytics solution called A&B Interactive Dashboard. The tool is designed to draw out behavioral and attitudinal data to provide marketers a clearer idea of what's drawing conversions and why. It's compatible with web analytics programs such as Google Analytics, Omniture, Coremetrics, and Web Trends.

Stephanie Hamel, Director and Treasurer of the Web Analytics Association is calling the tool a "game changer."

"Today, there is no simple way for companies to combine behavioral and attitudinal data without a tremendous amount of effort and cost," said Hamel. "Now, iPerceptions is offering a simple and easy-to-use dashboard that gives website operators the ability to flexibly interact with a fully integrated dataset that delivers real insight."

The A&B Interactive Dashboard provides:

• KPI Tracker to monitor user-selected KPIs over time (time on site, satisfaction, POV, task completion, etc.)
• Data Miner to empower users to crosstab, slice and dice clickstream and survey data together (referrals versus POV)
• Text Miner to enable users to browse and visualize associated open-ended text data and behavioral data (for example, reasons for abandoning your funnel)
• Benchmarks to track the evolution of the comprehensive website KPIs against the KPI of a self-selected combination of more than 30 industries and millions of consumer self-initiated surveys served by iPerceptions 4Q and webValidator Continuous Listening Solutions
• Outcome Predictor to enable the user to run priority grids and model out "what-if?" scenarios

iPerceptions is attempting to fill what they view as gaps in current web analytics tools.

"Marketers need to have their finger on the pulse of their online visitors," said Claude Guay, CEO of iPerceptions. "The only way to do this is to put the 'what' and the 'why' together, so you finally have context for the behavior based on their spoken intention. A&B Interactive Dashboard breaks down the divides of web analytics to give every marketer a fast, easy and cost effective way to drill down into the full range of data that makes or breaks a website."

One of iPerceptions goals in the launch of the A&B Interactive Dashboard is to provide additional to Google Analytics, a free web analytics tool. The new dashboard is designed to help interpret the raw data that Google Analytics provides. The solution can provide additional analytics without the costs associated with some of the paid web analytics tools out there.

This could be a great mid-range solution during a time when marketing budgets are tightened or small businesses are wary of how they're resources are being spent.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 18, 2009, 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yahoo! Announces Yodel Studio Winners

The winners of the Yahoo! Yodel Studio contest have been announced.

• Tiffany Jo Allen of Tucson, AZ
• Katherine Skene of St. Andrews, UK
• Ankitaa Bhattacharji of Mumbai, India

The winners were publicly voted on after Yahoo! selected three finalists each for the US, UK, and India from 21,000 submissions.

Tiffany Jo's Yodel can be heard on the Yahoo! homepage for the next week. Simply click on the exclamation point in Yahoo!'s logo to give it a listen.

Katherine and Ankitaa's Yodels will be featured on the respective UK and India Yahoo! homepages in coming weeks.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 18, 2009, 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Scholar Adds Legal Search for U.S. Federal and State Courts

Google Scholar is adding legal search to its offerings. This enables anyone to search the full texts of legal opinions given in U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts.

Simply go to Google Scholar, select the radio button for "Legal Opinions and Journals" and then search your keyword.

Here's how the results will look:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 18, 2009, 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo Among Profiters From Senate Investigated $1.4 Billion 'Web Scam'

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation are investigating loyalty programs from companies including Vertrue, Webloyalty, and Affinion that generated $1.4 billion with credit card information given to them by their marketing partners - which include Yahoo - without the knowledge of most of the customers, Cnet reported.

"The government says the investigation shows that Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue "trick" consumers into entering their e-mail address just before they complete purchases at sites such as Orbitz, Priceline.com, Buy.com, 1-800 Flowers, Continental Airlines, Fandango, and Classmates.com. A Web ad, which many consumers say appears to be from the retailer, offers them cash back or coupon if they key in their e-mail address," Cnet stated.

Since no credit card information is asked for by these promotions. customers took advantage of reduced prices from "trusted" vendors and had to read the small type - which virtually no one does - to discover they would be charged monthly by the program - between $9 and $12.

Yahoo is amongst the companies that received between $1-10 million through the arrangement, according to government figures.

Posted by Frank Watson on November 18, 2009, 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

FacteryLabs Launch FactRank Engine

The search industry has seen a lot of new engines developed moving towards a diversity of specific needs. Recently, "real time" search has been a hot topic with the use of social media in search.

This week a new engine was launched by FacteryLabs - an search technology company founded by Paul Pedersen and Sean Gaddis who have worked at Google, Powerset, eBay, and Skype.

The company has developed a FactFinder API that can be used to combine data from Twitter and Yahoo BOSS. The results I found for various searches may need some fine tuning but the product offers some interesting insights.

Doing a search from their onsite engine gives facts garnered from Twitter conversations and Yahoo search. Essentially you get current discussions and ranked facts about the search topic.

The results are geared towards adoption by mobile search where large amounts of information are generally not being searched for. As Cnet summarizes:

"In a nutshell it goes like this: FactRank goes through each Web page or source (in whatever index it's searching from) finding semantic tip-offs like declarative sentences. It then cross references each of those against one another, surfacing some of the most relevant ones to the top, as well as factoring in the order of how they appeared. What the user then gets is a tidy list of statements, each of which is sourced and given a level of relevancy based on their appearances in all of the indexed source pages combined."

The company offers developers the ability to tailor results, so iterations should be populating the web soon. As the site states, "FactEngine will cut through the noise, spam, and porn that convolutes the real-time web to bring you the most relevant facts fast."

Posted by Frank Watson on November 18, 2009, 7:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yahoo Dropping Go Mobile January 12

Yahoo will be stopping support for Go January 12 and is telling people to migrate to m.yahoo.com - their mobile portal, Cnet noted.

As CNet reports "Killing Yahoo Go is in line with Yahoo's mobile strategy, says Yahoo's global head of mobile product marketing, Adam Taggart. "In the past 18 months, browser quality has been increasing at an accelerated rate. We've doubled down on our mobile Web strategy.""

The move will make app developers change over to the m.yahoo platform.

Posted by Frank Watson on November 18, 2009, 5:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google To Preview Chrome OS Thursday, Launch In New Year

Google has announced they will hold a preview of the Chrome OS this Thursday and the product will launch in the new year, according to the Washington Post.

"Sundar Pichai, Google's VP of Product Management and Matthew Papakipos, Google Engineering Director for Google Chrome OS will be speaking at the event,: the newspaper reported.

Rumors of the operating system have been around for much of the year and Thursday will be the first time the product will be shown with technical information and some demos. Did-It CEO Kevin Lee suggested some interesting ways to prepare Adwords for the OS launch.

Thursday should be interesting and the new year launch will definitely grab Google some major media attention.

Posted by Frank Watson on November 18, 2009, 5:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Bing and Google Both Gain Half Point in October 2009 comScore Rankings

comScore has released their search market share rankings for October 2009 and the news is good for both Google and Bing - they both gained 0.5% in search share. This came at the expense of Yahoo! who lost 0.8% and AOL, which lost 0.1%. Ask.com stayed steady.

After experiencing a slowdown in the rate of growth in September, Bing is back on the momentum it was gaining since launch last June. Bing has now gained 1.9% share since launch.

At first, Bing's growth came at Google's expense. As of this new report, Google has recouped all losses, while Bing keeps growing.

This is mostly problematic for Microsoft's partnership with Yahoo! They're stealing share from a competitor set to become a partner.

Still, Microsoft has to be thrilled with the headway they're making with Bing.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 17, 2009, 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Launches 'Image Swirl' Into Labs

Google is unveiling a new type of image search they're calling "Image Swirl." It's available as a limited preview in Google Labs. You can access the Image Swirl search here.

Here's an example of what you'll see when you do. I did a search for "golden retrievers" and the initial page of results looks like this:

Then, once you click on a result, you get this:

Click on an individual pic and you'll, well, just get the thumbnail of that pic in a bubble:

The preview is limited to 200,000 queries, and that will seem like a lot until you search for a term that's not included. While "golden retriever" is included, "comfort retriever" (a golden/spaniel mix) is not. My dog Ruby is totally offended.

But hey, that's why it's in Labs. It's a nifty tool, good for refinement of image searches without having to type in a new query.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 17, 2009, 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Google Replaces Some URLs with Site Hierarchies in Search Results

In Google's search results, they've always included the URL to the link associated with a given result. The URL is set in green text at the bottom of the result. Now, they're replacing some of those URLs with site hierarchies.

Let's say you're searching for cat toys. Previously you may have seen:

http://www.domain.com/example/cattoys

Now you may see:

Domain.com > Example > Cat Toys

Here's an example as seen at the Official Google Blog:

The root domain will always show. If the site's hierarchy is deep, you may see an elipses to represent skipped categories:

Domain.com > .....>Example > Cat Toys

As with all major changes at Google, this is a rolling update. So if you don't see it, sit tight. It's rolling out globally over the next few days.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 17, 2009, 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Shaking My Head at Mark Cuban...

Mark Cuban has suggested that Microsoft simply pay sites to be removed from the Google index. This is his big idea to even the playing field and make search more competitive.

This. simply. will. not. work.

All that will happen is those sites will get less traffic. A LOT less traffic. No one will go to Bing to exclusively search 1,000 sites. The general public doesn't keep up with the politics of search enough to care about that kind of crap. They would just think that Microsoft is being a big evil corporation, and they'd turn on the publishers who removed their sites from Google index.

Perhaps Cuban should stick to getting in trouble with the NBA with his Tweets.

via Gizmodo

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 17, 2009, 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

adCenter Allows Bidding for MSN Tech & Gadgets, Hotmail

adCenter is enabling the ability to bid specifically for two Microsoft entities: the MSN Tech & Gadgets portal and the popular web-based email, Hotmail.

Here's how to do it:

1. Create a new ad group, setting the bid type for Networks and websites
2. Create your ad
3. In the Select Placements window, choose the Websites tab
4. Enter tech.msn.com and/or *mail.live.com
5. Click View available placements
6. Select the sites that you wish to bid on, then click Add.
7. Click Continue.
8. Set your Default bid

You're all set. adCenter offered up the following demographic details about the audience for these entities:

• MSN Tech & Gadgets - 42% have a household income of $75,000 or more
• Hotmail - 83% have purchased online in the past six months

Is advertising on MSN Tech & Gadgets and/or Hotmail attractive to you? Tell us why or why not in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 17, 2009, 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ask.com Sharpens Focus on Q&A

When Internet users conduct searches at Ask.com, they pose their keywords as questions three times more than any other search engine. So, it makes sense that Ask.com is focused on improving the Q&A experience on their site and on the web.

Last summer, Ask launched a specific Q&A section with 300 million Q&A pairs in their database. They've recently reached the milestone of reaching 400 million Q&A pairs. Adding 100 million Q&A pairs in 5 months is impressive indeed.

But Ask's focus on Q&A is not *just* about finding pairs and serving them up in search results. Ask.com has big plans for the Answers niche.

I spoke with Ask.com US President Doug Leeds yesterday and he identified the key areas of both search and the Answers niche that need solving - and how Ask.com is tackling them.

Specifically, when people want a question answered, they don't care to sift through tons of sites to find the answer. They want to find the answer quickly and be on their way. They aren't there to buy anything. This understanding is, yes, even good for search marketers, who don't really want clicks when there's zero intention to buy.

Sometimes, however, there aren't Q&A pairs available for a given question. Think of current events, for example. There may not be a Q&A pair out yet for a breaking news event.

Ask.com seeks to solve this problem by identifying the right people to go to for Answers. So, theoretically, if you have a question about a newly identified hurricane, you could at least know a meteorologist to pose a question to, as opposed to reading up the raw reports at NOAA laden with science-y speak.

I asked Leeds how search marketers could take advantage of this focus on Q&A. He gave the admittedly common search engine answer: Create quality content.

But Ask.com's focus on search is a great reminder to be active in the Q&A field. Sites dedicated solely to Q&A are on the rise - precisely because of their ability to precisely and quickly answer questions.

While focusing on Answers may not have some sort of tech-sexy appeal, it's a smart move for the sixth largest network of sites. While Yahoo! and AOL are focusing on content portals and Bing is busy trying to take down Google, Ask is simply focused on improving the user experience. Hopefully, they'll be able to gain some traction in search with this sharpened focus in an industry that desperately needs some solid innovation.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 17, 2009, 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Polishes Translate, Adds Features

Google has cleaned up Translate with a new look, and threw in a few new features for good measure:

Translate as you type - The only problem with this is that any translator will tell you that langauges don't translate word for word. But this has always been a problem with computed translation, so it's not like the problem is worse with this or anything. Taking away the need to click a button feels like part of a greater strategy Google is testing, such as the recent homepage tests where the buttons under the text box were removed.

Romanization of character-based languages - If you're translating to a character-based language such as Chinese, you can select "Show romanization" to get the words displayed phonetically in English. This is not yet available for Hebrew, Arabic, or Persian.

Text to speech - If you'd like to hear how your translation sounds, just click the speaker icon.

For more information on these new features, check out the video Google put together:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 17, 2009, 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

AOL Spinoff to Occur on December 9, 2009

Last spring, Time Warner announced that it would spin off AOL as an independent company. The announcement was made shortly after hiring Tim Armstrong away from Google as President. This fall, they've named members to the future Board of Directors and hired key financial executives needed to run the publicly traded company.

Now, we know that AOL's independence day is December 9, 2009. All Time Warner stockholders as of 5pm on November 27, 2009 will receive 1 AOL share for every 11 shares of Time Warner.

AOL has openly talked about their focus on content, in ways reminiscent of Yahoo! after striking a deal with Microsoft. AOL currently relies on Google for their search, and there's no sign of that changing anytime soon.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 17, 2009, 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Search Engine Strategies Forum at Online Marketing Summit, San Diego.

I was at PubCon last week in Las Vegas. It was a tremendous show with an excellent turnout. I had quite a few conversations about Search Engine Watch, ClickZ and Search Engine Strategies for 2010 and had a lot of great feedback from PubCon attendees. But it seemed that quite a few people hadn't noticed one of the new events in the SES calendar for February of next year.

With our partners at Online Marketing Summit we'll be bringing a full day, two track forum event featuring some of the industry's leading search marketing experts.

I'll be kicking off the day with an all star lineup to discuss "SEM, Then and Now. What's new? What's the same." As the description lays out, if you stumbled into a time machine in 1999 and out in 2009 you'd be startled by an array of unfamiliar challenges. Meta tags, reciprocal linking and dynamic URL issues are nowhere near as critical as they used to be all those years ago.

So with a group of industry insiders, I'll be getting them to give us veteran opinions on what has changed what the new challenges are and how we tackle them. It's a great way to gear up to search marketing for the new year.

You'll hear from industry big-brains covering everything from the basics through to more advanced topics. And it's not just search at OMS, it's the total online thing. Social media, analytics, demand generation, email and integrated marketing are all covered by experts.

So, come join us for some search marketing in the sun (just take a peek at how fabulous this venue is!).

Register here for Online Marketing Summit, San Diego, Feb 22nd - 25th.

Posted by Mike Grehan on November 16, 2009, 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Revised Google Book Settlement Addresses Rightsholders Issues

The Google Book Settlement has finally been revised. There are two main changes that have been made: how the settlement pertains to other countries and unclaimed works.

Here's Google's official statements on those two issues:

International Scope:

As revised, the settlement will only include books that were either registered with the U.S. Copyright Office or published in the U.K., Australia, or Canada. After hearing feedback from foreign rightsholders, the plaintiffs decided to narrow the class to include only these countries, which share a common legal heritage and similar book industry practices. British, Australian, and Canadian rightsholders are joining the case as named plaintiffs and will also be represented on the Board of the Book Rights Registry.

Unclaimed works:

The amended settlement agreement requires the Book Rights Registry to search for rightsholders who have not yet come forward and to hold revenue on their behalf. The settlement now also specifies that a portion of the revenue generated from unclaimed works may, after five years, be used to locate rightsholders, but will no longer be used for the Registry's general operations or redistributed to other rightsholders. The Registry may ask the court after 10 years to distribute these funds to nonprofits benefiting rightsholders and the reading public, and may provide abandoned funds to the appropriate government authority in compliance with state property laws. The Registry will now also include a Court-approved fiduciary who will represent rightsholders of unclaimed books, act to protect their interests, and license their works to third parties, to the extent permitted by law.

Google also took the opportunity of the revision to emphasize and reassure on other points of concern. They reiterated that the settlement didn't prevent books from being sold at other retailers such as Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Additionally, they will have agreements with libraries to provide access to Google Books.

Rightsholders also have the ability to limit what Google previews in book search results. You may have noticed this if you've ever accessed a book from Google Books. You're happily reading along and then you get a notice that pages or chapters are missing. This is because the author wants you to buy the book and Google is complying with that reasonable request. If an author wants to make a book available for free or under Creative Commons licenses, they are free to do that as well.

Overall, the agreement is largely intact, with the exception to those two big changes mentioned above.

What to you think of the Google Books settlement revision? Will this be the final version or will they have to go back to the drawing board again? Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 16, 2009, 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Fliqz Launches Online Video SEO Tool

Video solution provider Fliqz has announced the launch of a new online video search engine optimization (SEO) tool. The tool is dubbed SearchSuccess and Fliqz says that companies who tested the product are experiencing early success.

A whopping two-thirds of the videos submitted by these early customers have reached first page Google rankings. 25% have seen the number one position.

"SearchSuccess addresses many of the common flaws in existing Video SEO strategies," said Benjamin Wayne, CEO of Fliqz. "Many publishers are mistakenly under the impression that submitting videos to YouTube will drive traffic back to their site, or are working with video platform providers whose search engine submission techniques are either ineffective or drive traffic to the platform provider rather than the publisher. SearchSuccess is the first product to ensure search ranking while guaranteeing traffic is directed to the publisher's site."

One customer experiencing the early success is Design World Online, who has produced videos for topics such as 3D CAD models and OEM machine building. They've submitted 1,000 videos and 700 of them are already ranked on the first page of results.

"One of the most critical parts of our business, aside from generating quality content for our users, is helping engineers find and engage in our community and resources," said Marshall Matheson, vice president of New Media for Design World Online. "Using Fliqz to optimize our videos has directly impacted our bottom line as not only has it resulted in a significant uptick in traffic but increased visitor engagement and conversion rates."

SearchSuccess is available as an add-on to Fliqz's Gold Edition video solution.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 16, 2009, 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Updates API for SideWiki with RSS Capabilities

Back in September, Google launched Sidewiki. When you're using the Google Toolbar, you can access Sidewiki for any web page (that's been annotated with the tool). You'll see comments and notes about the site, as chosen and ranked by Google.

Now, Google is updating the API for Sidewiki. With the update, you can now view new entries created for a Sidewiki page via RSS.

If you're interested in developing with the Google Sidewiki API, check out the documentation here.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 16, 2009, 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wordstream Integrates Google Analytics for Comprehensive Keyword Research

Wordstream has released an update to their keyword research tool that integrates Google Analytics. The reason for the integration is to pull information about what keywords are actually driving traffic to your website to give you a comprehensive view of your keyword landscape.

Keyword tools are good at providing information on which keywords are searched the most, but you can't always be sure that a given keyword will actually perform well with your site. Wordstream's goal is to take the data from its keyword tool and combine it with your Google Analytics keyword data in order to provide better suggestions on which keywords you should focus on.

You can get a trial version of Wordstream for free by clicking here.

Wordstream has put together a handy video demonstrating the new integration with Google Analytics. Check it out:

Have you checked out Wordstream? Let us know what you think of the tool by leaving a comment below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 16, 2009, 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Go to SES Berlin or Chicago for (Over) Ten Authors Speaking

During the past nine weeks, I've shared nine significant reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are: "nine trainers training, eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

This week, I'll share a tenth important reason -- and it isn't to see "ten lords a-leaping." You should attend these events to hear well over ten authors speaking.

Actually, there will be at least 22 authors speaking at SES Berlin (November 23-25) or Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 (December 7-11), but I was already having difficulty fitting the facts into my version of the popular English Christmas carol.

Now, there will be 65 speakers at Search Engine Strategies Berlin and 172 speakers at SES Chicago 2009. So, why is hearing 22 authors speak an important reason to go to one of these must-attend events?

Well, if you've read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, then you probably share his great love for books. And you probably also share his distain for a distopian society where "firemen" burn books "for the good of humanity."

When Bradbury became the first science fiction writer to win the Pulitzer Prize in May 2007, he told LA Weekly that his novel was not about government censorship. Instead, he said Fahrenheit 451 was a story about how people's interest in books had been destroyed by television, replacing critical thought with useless "factoids."

Now, I'm not suggesting that we should all be like Granger, the leader a group of wandering intellectual exiles in Fahrenheit 451 who memorize books in order to preserve their contents. Nor, should we act like Clarisse McClellan, the character in the novel who is unpopular among her peers and disliked by her teachers for asking why instead of how and focusing on nature instead of technology.

But, in an era when most YouTube videos are 2-3 minutes long, wouldn't you like to hear from someone who "wrote the book" on search engine optimization, search engine marketing, or social media? And, in an era where tweets are 140-characters or less, wouldn't you like to meet up with an author who has written 200-500 pages about Google, YouTube, or blogs?

This isn't a knock on YouTube or Twitter. Back in June 2009, the contested election in Iran between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi led to massive demonstrations, with many Iranians going to social networks like YouTube and Twitter to share the upheaval in their country with the world.

Still, wouldn't you like to get an in-depth understanding of how your organization can use social media or search by talking with a person who has written a detailed account of this or another related topic?

So, who will you meet? Here are the 21 authors that I was able to identify:

Tim Ash, author of Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions.

Andy Beal, co-author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online.

Bruce Clay, author of Search Engine Optimization All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies.

Bryan Eisenberg, co-author of Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer; Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing; and Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results.

Mona Elesseily, author of Mastering Panama.

Eric Enge, co-author of The Art of SEO.

Jennifer Evans Laycock, author of The Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing and of the Zero Dollars, a Little Bit of Talent and 30 Days series.

Liana Evans, author of Social Media Marketing: Publicity Through Viral Marketing.

Rand Fishkin, co-author of The Art of SEO.

Andrew Goodman, author of Winning Results with Google AdWords.

Mike Grehan, author of Search Engine Marketing: The Essential Best Practice Guide.

Bill Hunt, co-author of Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site.

Greg Jarboe, author of YouTube and Video Marketing: an Hour a Day.

Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do?

Kevin Lee, author of The Truth About Pay-Per-Click Search Advertising and co-author of The Eyes Have It: How to Market in an Age of Divergent Consumers, Media Chaos and Advertising Anarchy and Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales.

Rebecca Lieb, author of The Truth About Search Engine Optimization.

Peter Morville, author of Ambient Findability and Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.

Ayat Shukairy, co-author of Landing Page Optimization: The Complete Guide.

Jim Sterne, author of Web Metrics: Proven Methods for Measuring Web Site Success; Customer Service on the Internet: Building Relationships, Increasing Loyalty, and Staying Competitive; Advertising on The Web; and World Wide Web Marketing: Integrating the Web into Your Marketing Strategy.

David Szetela, author of Customers Now: Profiting From the New Frontier of Content-Based Internet Advertising.

Shari Thurow, author of Search Engine Visibility and When Search Meets Web Usability.

Amanda Watlington, co-author of Business Blogs: A Practical Guide.

I know a couple of other people who are working on books, but haven't finalized their titles yet. And I'm sure I'm missing a few authors. Any oversights are unintentional.

Next week, Search Engine Strategies Berlin gets underway. But, we'll continue looking at more reasons for going to SES Chicago 2009.

By the way, if you register for SES Chicago 2009 by Friday, November 20, you can save up to $200 with the Advance Rate. That's enough to buy half a dozen of the books mentioned above.

In the meantime, just keep singing "ten authors speaking, nine trainers training, eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 16, 2009, 2:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Google Adds AdSense for Feeds, Feedburner Data to Analytics

If you use AdSense for Feeds or Google Feedburner to manage RSS feeds on your site - and you use Google Analytics - then you'll be glad to know Google is connecting the two. You'll be able to iew click data for your feeds services in Google Analytics.

Analytics will tag the Source as "Feedburner" and the Medium as either "feed" or "email" depending on how the feed item was sent out. Content will show the endpoint (i.e. Google Reader, Yahoo! Mail). Check for the data under "All Traffic Sources" and "Campaigns" views in Google Analytics.

Google Analytics gathers this data when item clicking is turned on in Feedburner. So you'll need to have that enabled for this to work - or not if you don't.

Advanced analytics users can also configure their Analytics tracking within their Feedburner settings.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 13, 2009, 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Google Updates AdWords Editor

A new version of Google's AdWords Editor has been released. Version 7.6.1's new features include:

• Ad scheduling and advanced location targeting
• Add/Update Multiple Campaigns
• Account tree editing
• Promoted Video ads
• Export spreadsheet with images (ZIP)

Updated features include:

• Keyword expansion
• Campaign and ad group pickers
• Import CSV error export

There's also new bidding terminology:

• Max. CPC Search - (previously Max. CPC)
• Max. CPC Automatic Placements (previously Max. Content CPC)
• Max. CPC Managed Placements (previously Placement Max. CPC)

There's no change to Max CPA and Max CPM terminology.

Check out the full release notes here.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 13, 2009, 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Acquires VoIP Company, Gizmo5

Google has acquired Gizmo5, a Voice over the Internet Protocol network and software provider. The acquisition is designed to enhance Google Voice, but it's a game changer.

Google has been answering to the FCC lately about concerns over potential regulatory violations surrounding it's Voice service. AT&T publicly complained that Google had been restricting high-priced calls that telecommunications were forced by regulation. Google defended Voice by saying it's a call management system and not a true telecommunications provider.

Specifically, Google pointed out that it was not a VoIP service. Of course, that all changes with this acquisition. Google seems to be trying to downplay the change though, by vaguely labeling Gizmo5 an "Internet-based calling software" provider. This is in line with their defense of Google Voice as a web-based call management system. But careful wording isn't going to fool anybody.

Not that it's wrong for Google to get into the telecommunications game. And their entry raises some important questions about obviously outdated government regulations (which is ultimately AT&T's concern). But they'll make their point better if they stay honest about Google Voice with their acquisition.

It's possible that Google Voice will stay the same and Gizmo5's VoIP service will be nixed. But Google Voice as a call management system is somewhat limited. The demand for Google Voice shows that the public is ready for something more than what the telcos currently (are able to) provide. Far be it from Google to take on that challenge.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 13, 2009, 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

YouTube to Add Support for 1080p HD Video

YouTube has announced that they will begin supporting 1080p HD video. The support will begin sometime next week.

Previously, the max HD resolution was 720p. Resolution for a given video will depend on the resolution on the source of the video. In other words, a video will need to be uploaded in 1080p to appear as 1080p on YouTube.

Videos that were already uploaded in 1080p are being re-encoded by YouTube.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 13, 2009, 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Bing in the UK: Search Out of Beta, Maps Launches

Bing is officially lifting the beta label from their search offering in the UK. Searchers will experience features that US searchers get including homepage hotspots, visual search, and Twitter integration. The Bing UK shopping search will be integrated with Ciao UK.

Meanwhile, Bing Maps is launching in the UK. Previously, UK internet users were redirected to Multimap.com. Bing Maps UK includes a variety of features such as Tube Maps as well as London Congestion Charge Warnings.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 13, 2009, 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We Have No Index, No Follow, Canonical Tags: How About Specific Keyword Blocking

A member over at the SEW forums suggested the need for a no listing in search results for specific keywords tag and the concept is a good one. We have negative keyword options for paid search, why not an option for blocking what terms a site appears in the search results?

If web site owners help the engines with the addition of the canonical tag to their sites, it would only be fair if the engines returned the favor. If you have a comment on the idea please join the conversation.

Posted by Frank Watson on November 12, 2009, 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Leapfish Launches Portal, Search For "Living Web"

Leapfish has launched an entry portal for web users to what they are calling "the Living Web" as they show in their impressive YouTube commercial below. Basically Leapfish offers a start page for web users where they can watch their Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as set up feeds for news, entertainment, sports and other services.

The site offers some very interesting possibilities. It has some similarities to iGoogle but has managed to integrate social media faster than the search giant that recently signed a data share agreement with Twitter. Bing also has access to both Facebook and Twitter so it will be interesting to see if they launch something similar.

Leapfish is part of DotNext a company devoted to innovation. Their CEO Ben Behrouzi gives some insights in to Leapfish in a Fast Company interview below.

Leapfish combines the social media into the search process to create their results. "There remain major aspects of the Web that have not yet integrated "searching" and "sharing" of the Real Time Web, including traditional search. But as filtration and integration progress the Web will take the form of a living breathing database," their blog notes.

Posted by Frank Watson on November 12, 2009, 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

AdWords Launches Product Listings Ads and DFA Analytics, Updates Ad Planner

Google AdWords has unleashed a heap of updates, so let's dive right in and see what's going on.

Product Listing Ads

This is a new type of ad that will be included in shopping-related results on Google.com. The ads are Cost-per-Action (CPA). Advertisers will only pay when users click through and make a purchase. It works in conjunction with an advertiser's Google Merchant Center account.

Because of the Google Merchant Center connection, advertisers don't need to find keywords or create ad text. Google will cull all that information for you and serve up the ads when the relevant keyword is searched. (Of course, you'll still want to do keyword research and make sure you get the right keywords in when you're setting things up in the Google Merchant Center).

Ad Planner Updates

Google's media buying tool, Ad Planner, has received some updates:

• Subdomain data - View data such as traffic and demographics for publisher subdomains
• Ad placements - View specific sections of a website where advertising can be purchased.
• Reach and relevance at a glance - New interactive graph shows which sites in your planned campaign will perform the best
• More detailed publisher data - Since publishers and advertisers can share Google Analytics data with Ad Planner, more data points are available such as page views, unique visitors, total visits, average visits per visitor, and average time on site.

DART for Advertisers Updates

DART for Advertisers (DFA) is the DoubleClick platform and it has a new Analytics feature that's been launched into beta. Google is touting the features and benefits over at the AdWords Agency blog:

• Quick insights. Interactive reports with charts and graphs.
• Fast reports. Reports update frequently - every few hours - and the new user interface enables you to access your data quickly.
• New Report Types. Geographic delivery data as well as additional reports that show delivery data by bandwidth, browser, and operating system.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 12, 2009, 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Webmaster Tools Updates Keywords User Interface

Google has updated the Keywords user interface in Webmaster Tools. The update includes:

• Daily data updates
• Details on how often specific keywords were found
• Displaying up to 10 URLs that contain a keyword
• Significance column comparing each keyword's frequency to the most popular keyword's frequency

This tool really helps you know how Google sees your site. You can quickly recognize problem areas or address hacked content.

Have you checked out the new user interface? Let us know your first impressions of the update by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 12, 2009, 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Nielsen Rankings Show Google Up at Yahoo! and Bing's Expense

Earlier today, Greg Jarboe informed us about Hitwise's search share data and how it showed Bing continued to have momentum. But Nielsen has released their search share data for October 2009 and it's painting a different picture.

The data shows Google gaining 2 points in the past two months. This came at the expense of Yahoo! and Bing, which both lost a point since Nielsen's last search report in August.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 12, 2009, 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Continues Pursuit of Entertainment Search with Movie Results Update

Recently, Google unveiled its new music search and today Google is showing further interest in entertainment searches by announcing updates to its movie search.

Visit Google.com/movies to view the updates. Here's what to expect:

• Genre filters: Helps you decide what movies to see.
• Comprehensive movie pages: Shows plot summary, reviews, local showtimes, trailer and photos.
• Map view: Get directions to the movie you've chosen to see.

I haven't received the update yet, so here's a screenshot per the Official Google Blog (click to enlarge):

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 12, 2009, 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yahoo! Launches Mobile Site for U.S. Hispanic Users

Yahoo! has launched a site in Español targeted for the U.S. Hispanic market. The site is available for over 1,900 devices at http://espanol.yahoo.com.

Here's what you can expect:

• Discover via results from Yahoo!'s award-winning mobile Search, editor-selected content, and U.S. and global news content presented in Spanish, including the "América Latina" news section, which provides relevant content from the Latin American region.
• Stay connected through access to email and social networking accounts from the most popular Web providers, as well as instant messaging, address book, and calendar functions.
• Stay informed by bringing favorite Web content --sports, news, local information, RSS feeds, weather, stocks, horoscopes, and more -- to a single location.

"With the launch of Yahoo! Mobile en Español, we are focused on growing our audience among the more than 46 million U.S. Hispanics by providing a mobile experience that is both culturally and personally relevant, bringing together their world and the world around them," said Felipe Muñoz, senior mobile director, Yahoo! Hispanic Americas.

Focusing on the Hispanic market is a smart move for Yahoo! comScore mobile internet data shows adoption among Hispanics outpacing other demographics, with 88% accessing the mobile internet on their cell phones.

Meanwhile, Yahoo! is experiencing great success with their mobile homepage, with global usage tripling over the past two years.

"With the introduction of our new Spanish-language homepage, we are well positioned as the center of people's online lives. We're reaching the highly influential and increasingly mobile Hispanic market with an engaging and customizable mobile Internet experience, regardless of the language users prefer," said Muñoz.

The new mobile homepage will also enable a great advertising opportunity for companies targeting the Hispanic market.

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

Bing Searches Increase 7 Percent in October 2009

My colleague Nathania Johnson reported yesterday that "Bing Wave 2 Becomes Tsunami: Social Sharing, Travel and Health." I didn't get the news until this morning, because I was flying from San Diego back to Boston.

But I also found this press release in my email inbox: "Bing Searches Increase 7 Percent in October 2009." So, it looks like Bing also has the "Big Mo," or momentum.

If you look closer at the data, Bing's share of searches among leading search engines increased from 8.96 percent in September 2009 to 9.57 percent in October. Meanwhile, Google's share decreased 1 percent -- from 71.08 percent in September to 70.60 percent in October.

Okay, so maybe the "Big Mo" is actually a "Little Mo." But, increasing share is better than losing market share. So, let's give Bing a pat on the back.

Everyone seems to be hoping this turns into a real horse race. Competition is healthy. But more than seven times more searches are conducted on Google than on Bing. So, let's not get too excited about the small shifts in share over a one-month period.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 12, 2009, 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Google Adds World Bank Public Data to Search Results

Last April, Google launched the integration of public data into its main search results. Now, they're adding even more public data - this time from the World Bank.

You can search 17 World Bank data indicators:

• CO2 emissions per capita
• Electricity consumption per capita
• Energy use per capita
• Exports as percentage of GDP
• Fertility rate
• GDP deflator change
• GDP growth rate
• GNI per capita in PPP dollars
• Gross Domestic Product
• Gross National Income in PPP dollars
• Imports as percentage of GDP
• Internet users as percentage of population
• Life expectancy
• Military expenditure as percentage of GDP
• Mortality rate, under 5
• Population
• Population growth rate

Here's a screenshot for the results of searching "gdp growth rate zimbabwe"

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bing Wave 2 Becomes Tsunami: Social Sharing, Travel and Health

In addition to the three updates we told you about earlier today, Bing has a bunch more as part of Bing Wave 2. Just like they other updates, they're rolling out over the course of days, so you may not see them all right away.

Share Search Results

When you get the Bing update, you'll be able to share individual search results with your social networks on Facebook and Twitter. You can also email a search result.

Travel

From the homepage, you'll be able to hover over "Travel" and get options to go directly to options to search airfares and hotels.

When you're in Bing Travel, you'll see a new interactive Instant Answer that lets you plug in your travel dates to narrow your search from the beginning.

Enhanced city results will help you plan your stay, including events at your destination:

Health

Bing says they've also updated their Health results. The results are more organized so you can access the information you're really looking for.

What do you think of this round of Bing updates? Wave your opinion hello in the comments below.

All images lovingly borrowed from the Bing Search blog.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Google Enables SafeSearch Locking

Google is offering additional protection for its "strict" SafeSearch options. When you receive the update, you'll be required to give your password to select the strict option or to change it back to moderate or off.

When the strict SafeSearch is selected, bright bubbles with the primary colors of Google's famous bubble will be present in the top right corner of the page.

This means parents can keep an eye on their kids' web browsing without breathing down their necks.

For more info, check out this video Google put together:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bing Launches Wolfram|Alpha Integration, Enhanced Hover Preview, and Full Page Weather/Events Results

Bing today is unleashing a flurry of big updates, all part of Bing Wave 2.

Wolfram|Alpha Partnership

First up is a new integration with Wolfram|Alpha in the diet and fitness category. As a result, users will be able to get information on nutrition and the Body Mass Index (BMI).

Enhanced Hover Preview

When Bing launched, hover preview was one of its features. The preview grabbed text from a search result so you could see more info on a site before clicking on the link. You had hover over a very small and specific circle. But now Bing is making the hover preview more accessible and substantial. Here's what to expect:

• An actual snapshot of the Web site in question
• A link to the customer service number (where appropriate)
• Deep links, the most-often-clicked links on the site
• A search-within-this-site box that allows you to scour the site to find what you're looking for.
• Facebook page previews, from which you can view a person's picture, see who is in their Facebook network and send them a message or friend request.

Weather/Event Results

If you search for a city, on the left sidebar, you'll see a refinement search for weather in that city. Clicking on that will give you more detailed information about weather. This can help you plan your day so you know whether to grab that jacket or umbrella on the way out the door.

Bing will be pulling together information from news, events, xRank results, Twitter feeds, images, Best Match results and content from trusted sites for the Weather/Events results.

The updates will roll out over the next few days, so hold your horses if you haven't gotten them yet.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

YouTube Tests Skip Button on Pre-Roll Ads

Over at our sister site ClickZ, Zachary Rodgers has the news on a new YouTube test where a "Skip" button is added to some Pre-Roll ads. This would allow users to avoid watching advertisements before the video they've chosen to watch.

YouTube hopes the test will lead to more creative ads. But this also could be a step towards performance pricing in video ads.

Don't expect big changes anytime soon. Pre-roll ads only appear on premium content from the likes of Sony and MGM. And YouTube maintains that the primary goal is better ads.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Williams Defense: Twitter CEO Defends Retweet Functionality

Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, has taken to his personal blog to defend the new, official implementation of Retweeting. The main problem that people have with Twitter's system is that Retweets do not appear as Retweets. Instead, Twitter inserts the original Tweet from someone you may or may not be following.

Williams essentially says that change is good and users need to embrace it:

The drawback is that it may be a little surprising (unpleasant even, for some) to discover avatars of people they don't follow in their timeline. I ask those people to keep in mind the following: You're already reading the content from these people via organic retweets. This is just giving you more context. My experience is that you get used to this pretty quickly, and it's a welcome way to mix things up. If you find someone constantly throwing people in there you don't like, as mentioned before, you can turn off Retweets from them (while still following their non-retweets). And if you really don't like it, and you only want to see what people you follow wrote themselves, you can turn off Retweets for everyone you follow (individually). Organic RTs do not offer nearly this flexibility.

Unfortunately, this seems like creating 2 solutions for 1 problem. If you have a problem with someone Retweeting too much, why not *just* create the ability to turn off their Retweets? Additionally, if these Retweets are so unwanted, then isn't displaying them as organic Tweets from strangers making the problem worse?

Williams said in his post that it was easier to read an original tweet than a Retweet - and especially the Retweet of a Retweet. But most people are looking to scan their feeds quickly. When you see the avatar and screen name of someone unfamiliar to you, it disrupts a quick read of Tweets. Sure, the brain will adjust somewhat and speed up the new process, but I can't imagine it truly being faster than scanning Tweets from people you've chosen to follow.

Another reason Williams cited was that it's annoying to see a string of Retweets in a single Tweet, the aforementioned action of Retweeting a Retweet. But Twitter only allows 140 characters, which limits the ability to really do this. And again, if you're annoyed when people do this, simply turn off their Retweets or don't follow them at all.

Last but not least, the new system doesn't allow users to make their own comments on a Retweet. Here's Williams' defense:

The other thing some people will not like is that, unlike organic RTs, there's no way to annotate or leave your own comment when you retweet something with the new system. Some people annotate with every retweet, some don't do it at all. But it's definitely useful in certain scenarios. We left it out of this first version mostly for simplicity. It's especially tricky when you consider transports like SMS where adding a lot of structure or additional content is hard. But we have some ideas there, and it's possible we'll build that in at a later date. (This point should not be missed.)

I'm glad they're still considering putting this functionality in. That it was hard is not the greatest defense. They probably should have waited until this was ready to roll out the Retweet feature, especially when they were changing up the way Retweets are displayed in the first place.

It's nice to see Williams addressing reservations that people have about the new system. However, in this case, I'm not sure the reasoning truly answers critics' concerns.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

LinkedIn Enables Simultaneous Twitter Updating

You can now update your status on LinkedIn and Twitter simultaneously. To do this, sign on to LinkedIn.

Then, go to your home page and under the Inbox, look the status update box under "Network Updates." See the Twitter icon next to the "Share" submit button? Click that if you want to enable simultaneous updating.

When you do, a pop up box will ask you to authorize your Twitter account and then will give you options on updating Twitter from LinkedIn. You can enable your Tweets to become your LinkedIn status updates at this point. Once you've selected your options, you're set to simultaneously update.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bing Launches New Cashback Contest: Win $10k and Time with Apple-icious Ryan Seacrest

Bing has unveiled a new Cashback Contest. The winner gets a trip to LA, cash and time with the host of American Idol. (Tech and pop culture junkies take note: American Idol has been sponsored by Apple for years with contestants blatantly using iPhones during the show. Can you feel the bitter corporate irony?)

Whoever wins gets all of this:

• $10,000 cash
• A round-trip flight, hotel
• A Hollywood makeover
• Serious E! studio time with Ryan Seacrest

Throw in a meet-and-greet with Joel McHale, and I'd be game. Ok, it's not ethical for me to enter, but if you want to - all you have to do is Register for Bing Cashback. If you're already registered, go to this link and click "Enter Now!"

Johnson OUT!

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Voice Gives Priority Invitations to Military Families

In honor of Veterans Day, Google Voice has announced that it will be giving priority Google Voice invitations to military families associated with the organization Blue Star Families.

Over at the Google Voice blog, Jason Toff, Associate Product Marketing Manager explains:

Military families encounter unique challenges and frequent separations, so staying in touch is vitally important. With one Google Voice number, families won't have to worry about missing calls from service members abroad.

Google Voice is a call management system. You can associate your one Google Voice number with multiple third-party phone numbers such as work, home, cell, etc. Then, when the Google Voice number is called, it can alert all numbers, so that you don't miss a call. This is a great way for military families to stay in touch and a great gesture by Google on this Veterans Day.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Adds Street View to Hawaii, Int'l Locations; Latitude Gets History and Location Alerts

The Google Earth and Maps Team has been hard at work unloading a bunch of updates. First up, Street View images for the state of Hawaii have been added. Now, all 50 states have Street View.

Additionally, Street View imagery has been added to 5 cities in Mexico, "huge swathes" of Spain, and 30 towns in the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, new updates have come to Latitude. You can now track the history of where you've been. This history is not made available to your friends.

But speaking of your friends, you can now get alerts when they're nearby (and using Latitude, of course). This will keep you from having to check Latitude constantly to see if anyone is nearby.

What do you think of these Google Maps updates? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bing Incorporates MSN Content into Video Search

Recently, MSN unveiled its new homepage, which relies on structured data from Bing. Now, the MSN/Bing integration intensifies with a re-vamping of Bing's video search. Bing has updated its video search to incorporate high-quality MSN content. With the update, you'll be able to access videos from Hulu, MSN, ABC, and Youtube directly from Bing's video search page.

The update is rolling out and should be complete in the next week or so. Right now, I'm able to access a preview at bing.com/videos/browse or by clicking "Videos" on the homepage.

Here's a screenshot of the new Bing Video (click to enlarge):

Check out this video of Rob Bennett, General Manager of MSN Network Programming, talking about the new video connection between Bing and MSN.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 11, 2009, 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Announces Yodel Studio Finalists; Google LatLong Announces Trike Finalists

Last month, Yahoo! and Google launched a couple of contests (separately), and this week both are announcing the finalists.

First up, Yahoo! is looking for a new Yodel, and they received 21,000 entries. They've narrowed it down to three contestants each for the US, UK and India. Click on the links below to view the finalists' entries and cast your vote:

US

Tiffany Jo from Arizona
Carlo from Arizona
Christopher from Oklahoma

UK

Katherine
Hajar
James

India

Nishant
Ankitaa
Ayesha

Meanwhile, Google launched a contest to see where the new Street View vehicle, Google Trike would go. They received 25,000 suggestions, 44% of which were college campuses. Below are the finalists for the various categories. You can cast your vote at Google.com/trike.

University Campuses
Arizona State University
Michigan State University
Princeton University
Rochester Intitute of Technology
Stanford University

Parks & Trails
Boulder Creek Bike Path, CO
Capital Crescent Trail, MD/DC
Centennial Trail, WA
Schuylkill River Trail, PA
Stevens Creek Trail, CA

Pedestrian Malls
Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, MA
Navy Pier, Chicago, IL
Pier 39, San Francisco, CA

Landmarks
Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, CA
Central Park, NY
Millenium Park, Chicago, IL
Kennedy Space Center, FL
National Mall, DC

Theme Parks & Zoos
Bronx Zoo, NY
Busch Gardens, VA
Detroit Zoo, MI
Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago, IL
San Diego Zoo, CA
Universal Studios, FL

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 10, 2009, 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google, Yahoo!, and Bing Launch Free Wifi Campaigns

The big three search engines all announced this week separate efforts to provide free Wifi in various locations.

Google is offering free Wifi in 47 airports. See the list here. The campaign runs through January 15, 2010.

Yahoo! is offering free Wifi to the 500,000 people who pass through Times Square each day. They're partnering with the Times Square Alliance in the effort, which will last through 2010.

Bing is offering free Wifi through JiWire hotspots in airports and hotels. All you have to do is conduct a search on Bing to get access. The program began in Q3 2009 and has been extended through the end of the year.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 10, 2009, 9:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Web Marketing Today Celebrates its 15th Birthday

If "Internet years" are anything like "dog years," then celebrating your 15th anniversary is like celebrating your 105 birthday. Can you remember what the world wide web was like in 1994?

That was the year that Netscape Navigator was launched. That was also the year that Dr. Ralph Wilson, Editor, launched Web Marketing Today.

Bryan Eisenberg, recognized authority and pioneer in online marketing and ClickZ's ROI Marketing columnist, says, "Ralph Wilson's newsletter was one of the first that I signed up for when I started in this industry and I still read it today. I would not be where I am today, and as respected as I am today, without his initial guidance. This newsletter is a must-read. Dr. Wilson really cuts through the clutter."

Jim Sterne, Founder of Web Marketing Association (WMA) and director of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, recently interviewed Dr. Wilson at SES San Jose 2009.

Jim Sterne Interviews Dr. Ralph Wilson of Web Marketing Today

To mark the 15th anniversary, anyone who subscribes to the Web Marketing Today newsletter receives six e-books/whitepapers that cover the basics of Internet marketing -- a $50 value. This includes his most requested item: "The Web Marketing Checklist -- 37 Ways to Promote Your Website."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 10, 2009, 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bing Maps Gets a Major Makeover; Silverlight Control 1.0 Released

There are some big changes happening at Bing Maps, both on the user end and the developer end.

On Bing.com/maps, you can check out the following updates:

• Draggable Routes
• Zoom Bar with predefined settings
• Command Parsing
• Embed a Map
• Dynamic Compute
• New Navigation
• World Wrap (no longer stops at International Date Line)
• Diet Bing Maps - loads faster due to lighter load

Meanwhile, Bing Maps Silverlight Control 1.0 has been released. This allows developers to incorporate Bing Maps into their applications. There are a ton of updates, too many to mention in this post, so be sure to check them out here if you're a developer.

The terms of use have changed, allowing educators and tax-exempt non-profits to use Bing Maps on their sites for free.

There are also the following updates to the terms of use, per the Bing Maps blog:

• Bing Maps AJAX Control - all maps rendered onto the client upon the initial request is considered 1 session. Session includes any requests for geocoding, routing or search.
• Bing Maps Silverlight Control - all maps rendered onto the client upon the initial request is considered 1 session. There are no services built into the Bing Maps Silverlight Control, so you would use the Bing Maps Web Service for geocoding, routing and search, but we'll include those too.
• Bing Maps Web Service - all maps, geocodes, routes and searches will each invoke 1 transaction.

What do you think of the updates for Bing Maps? Map your thoughts in the comments section below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 10, 2009, 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

UPDATE: Google Caffeine to Launch After Holidays (For the Most Part)

Earlier today, news broke that Google's new index would launch soon. The news was simultaneously exciting and disconcerting since most SEOs and search marketers are in full-fledged holiday mode, and boy, would this disrupt things.

But Google spam ninja Matt Cutts took to his personal blog to assure that most people won't get the update until after the holidays. You can breathe that sigh of relief now.

Caffeine will still be rolled out to one data center, which Cutts said will affect a small percentage of searchers.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 10, 2009, 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Includes Place Pages Ad Info on Placement Performance Reports

In September, Google launched Place Pages, which aggregate content to give a fuller listing for local content in Google Maps.

Ads appear on those Place Pages and now AdWords users can see if their ads are appearing on them. The data is included on Placement Performance reports.

You can't currently bid for an ad to be placed on a Place Page, but Google says bidding higher will increase your chances of appearing on them.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 10, 2009, 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Caffeine Sandbox Closed; Expect New Index Soon

In August, Google released a developer preview of their new index, dubbed Google Caffeine. Changes in the index appeared to be largely a "Your Mileage May Vary" situation, with some noticing hardly any changes to their rankings while others noticed bigger changes.

Now, Google has closed the preview sandbox and is prepping the new index for a larger release. It will initially roll out to one data center.

I would imagine that for many, this isn't the greatest time to be experiencing changes in Google's index. The holidays are coming and the economy has been in a rough place for quite a while now. Changing up rankings in the biggest search engine could affect holiday revenues and that's a scary thing. Although, for others it will probably be a positive change as well.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 10, 2009, 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Google To Murdoch: Use No Index Or Just Ask

News Corp. Founder and CEO Rupert Murdoch claims Google is stealing their content - the "content kleptomaniacs" as he has termed them. As Greg Jarboe's article below details this could be a major problem for News Corp web sites. Watch the embedded video to hear Murdoch's position.

The UK Telegraph quotes an unnamed Google spokesperson suggesting Murdoch just tell them they want to be dropped from the Google News index.

"Publishers put their content on the web because they want it to be found, so very few choose not to include their material in Google News and web search. But if they tell us not to include it, we don't," the Telegraph quotes.

"If publishers want their content to be removed from Google News specifically all they need to do it tell us."

Murdoch's interview with Sky News shows he may be a little out of touch with how the web works and how to use the traffic from search engines. I wrote an article suggesting he allow more web savvy people to deal with this issue.

The biggest problem with the current situation is that without a solid web approach and the increasing decline in newspaper circulation, there will definitely see a loss in the quality of journalism and in the range of stories that get covered. The Fifth Estate needs help - but battling with Google is not the way to help it.

Interestingly, in the interview Murdoch said there were no news or blog sites that were making big money or more than a couple of million dollars - must be nice to think of those numbers as small change. He obviously misses the power of large online communities and the amount of money they are generating.

Posted by Frank Watson on November 10, 2009, 6:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Judge Gives Google and Authors Another Book Settlement Extension

Today, Google and the Association of American Publishers were supposed to have reached a new settlement, but instead asked for another extension. Judge Denny Chin, who has been presiding over the case, granted the request.

In September, Judge Chin granted the publishers' request for a delay of the originally scheduled October hearing. The book settlement was announced last spring, but was coming under increased scrutiny from outside groups and the government.

The new deadline is this Friday, November 13.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 9, 2009, 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Google AdWords Adds Two New Alerts

Google AdWords has launched new alerts to help you manage your paid search campaigns.

Under the Opportunities Tab, Google has added alerts for keyword and budget ideas.

If you're using conversion tracking, you can now set up a custom alert to notify you of changes in conversion volume, conversion rate, and cost per conversion.

So far, custom alerts are only available for individual accounts, but Google says they are working on rolling out custom alerts for accounts linked through My Client Center (MCC).

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 9, 2009, 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Murdoch to Google: Drop Dead

Okay, so News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch didn't really tell Google to drop dead. That's just an attention getting device like the classic headline in The Daily News back in the 1970s: "Ford to City: Drop Dead."

What Murdoch did say in a Sky News interview today was that his company is considering blocking Google from being able to search its Web sites.

Murdoch said, "I think we will (block Google), but that's when we start charging. We have it already with the Wall Street Journal. We have a wall, but it's not right to the ceiling. You can get, usually, the first paragraph from any story - but if you're not a paying subscriber to WSJ.com all you get is a paragraph and a subscription form."

In the past, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said, "In general these models (paid online content) have not worked for general public consumption because there are enough free sources that the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity. So my guess is for niche and specialist markets ... it will be possible to do it but I think it is unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news."

If you want to watch the interview for yourself, check it out on YouTube -- which, ironically, is an independent subsidiary of Google Inc.

Sky News - Interview with Rupert Murdoch

Now, would Google really "drop dead" if News Corp. blocked it from crawling its websites?

Bill Tancer, the General Manager, Global Research at Experian Hitwise, took a look at this question in a blog post entitled, "News Corp. Google-less?"

According to Hitwise data:

• On a weekly basis Google and Google news are the top traffic providers for WSJ.com account for over 25 percent of WSJ.com's traffic.


• Over 44 percent of WSJ.com visitors coming from Google are "new" users who haven't visited the domain in the last 30 days.


• Twitter and Facebook sent 4% of US visits to News and Media sites in October 2009. (via @Hitwise_US)


• The percentage of upstream traffic from Facebook and Twitter to News and Media sites is up 490% year-over-year.

So, maybe Murdoch should think twice before pulling the plug on 25 percent of WSJ.com's traffic. Although the amount of traffic from social media like Facebook and Twitter is growing, it won't offset the upstream traffic from Google and Google News.

Or, who knows, maybe the tables will be turned someday and we'll read a headline like: "Google to Murdoch: Go Ahead, Make My Day."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 9, 2009, 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Google Acquires Mobile Advertising Provider AdMob

AdMob has been a major player in the mobile advertising world, really taking off when Apple enabled apps on their iPhone and iPod Touch devices. Google is gobbling up their competition mobile ad competition by acquiring AdMob.

"Mobile advertising has enormous potential as a marketing medium and while this industry is still in the early stages of development, AdMob has already made exceptional progress in a very short time," said Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management at Google. "AdMob is the quintessential Silicon Valley startup -- generating impressive year on year revenue growth -- and we're excited to welcome this talented team to Google."

As a result of the acquisition, Google expects the following:

• Better engagement for advertisers in their interactions with mobile users
• More effective monetization for publishers and developers
• More relevant ads and access to more content (supported by ads) for users

Google bought AdMob for $750 million. AdMob founder Omar Hamoui founded the company in 2006. This is quite a payoff for him, both monetarily and with regards to innovation in the industry.

"I think people underestimate how important ads have been to funding the development of innovative content on the Internet. Our goal all along at AdMob has been to make it possible for developers and publishers to bring their products and ideas to mobile with the same business model," said Hamoui. "We're proud of the progress we've made towards accomplishing this goal, and joining Google will only accelerate this process, ultimately leading to very real benefits for end users around the world. As publishers and developers generate more revenue from their mobile products, they will invest more, and their mobile offerings will become richer, more creative and more robust."

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

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 9, 2009, 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

American Daily Newspapers Employ 25% Fewer People Than in 2001

I apparently caused a stir yesterday at the PRSA International Conference in San Diego. Actually, it was a disturbing fact -- or an inconvenient truth -- that I cited which caused the stir. So, don't shoot the messanger.

During the Q&A part of the conference workshop, "Looking Ahead: The Nexus of Social Media and Public Relations," Peter Himler, founder and principal of Flatiron Communication, asked a rhetorical question of the audience. I've known Himler for about 15 years, so I raised my hand when nobody seemed eager to speculate on when traditional media relations should be declared dead.

I'm presenting a PRSA teleseminar on Nov. 17, and I had been working on my presentation before heading to San Diego. So, I happened to have a data point at my finger tips that related to the question.

According to The State of News Media for 2009, which is published by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, 5,900 full-time newsroom jobs, 11% of the total at America's newspapers, were cut in 2008. By the end of 2009, newsrooms of American daily newspapers may employ 25% fewer people than they did in 2001.

Ad Age estimates that just under 150,000 people worked in magazines in 2008, down from about 170,000 in 2000. And in local television, news staffs, already too small to adequately cover their communities, are being cut at unprecedented rates.

So, that's why PR people need to embrace social media as quickly as they can. If they don't include blog outreach, YouTube marketing, Facebook marketing, and Twitter marketing within the definition of public relations, then PR will employ 25% fewer people than it did in 2001.

Okay, so maybe that was a little like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. But facts are facts, and I was just telling the truth.

But some of the people in the room reacted like they were going through the five stages of grief described in the book by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, "On Death and Dying." They are:
1. Denial (This isn't happening to me!)
2. Anger (Why is this happening to me?)
3. Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
4. Depression (I don't care anymore.)
5. Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes.)

To help the PR specialists in your company through the grieving process, you should have the SEO specialists take them to lunch. Eat some comfort food. And let them know that they will play a really important role in social media -- as soon as they get their arms around social media measurement.

Okay, that last part may be "tough love." They may not be ready to embrace social media measurement -- yet.

But, sooner or later, they have to move on. Sooner or later, they need to heed the advice of Cher in the movie Moonstruck: "Get over it!"

Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 9, 2009, 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Twitter Tries to Get Rid of Spammy Trending Tweets

If you've ever viewed the stream of Tweets in a Trending Topic on Twitter, you've no doubt seen your share of spam. Twitter is now testing improvements to trending topics in order to get rid of the spam.

Twitter says they're focusing on identifying high-quality Tweets, but didn't go into detail. They also said you probably won't notice much change right away, but assured that small steps are being taken.

It's good to see Twitter taking on spam. No doubt spam is something that killed MySpace's popularity, which led to the rise of Facebook and Twitter.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 9, 2009, 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft Rolls Out adCenter Fall 2009 Upgrade

Over the weekend, Microsoft adCenter began rolling out its Fall 2009 upgrade. Tina Kelleher took to the official adCenter blog to give the scoop:

The adCenter team is in the process of getting ready to roll out the adCenter Fall 2009 Upgrade this weekend. This upgrade will include improvements in reporting, account management and will even add a few new features; we'll have more detailed information on Monday. You should expect to see the upgrade changes after Sunday, November 8th.

Have you seen the new features yet? What do you think? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 9, 2009, 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Maps Adds NYC Subway System Layer, Available for Some Mobile Phones Too

Google has added a new layer to their Maps: the New York City Subway System. This will be handy for those of you attending SES New York next spring.

To use it, view New York City in Google Maps and then click the "More" option and select Transit.

Zoom in and you'll see individual station icons. Click on an icon to get more information about that station.

Mobile devices that have access to layers on Google Maps will be able to access the subway maps. Those devices include BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian S60.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 9, 2009, 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for Nine Trainers Training

During the past seven weeks, I've shared seven compelling reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are "eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

This week, I'll share an eighth great reason -- and it isn't "nine ladies dancing."

You should attend these events for "nine trainers training."

As I mentioned back in September, training is one of the three key trends. If you type "SEO training" into Google Insights for Search, you'll see that web search interest has grown steadily since 2004 -- and is forecast to continue growing in 2010. So, it's not surprising that more time is being added to the schedules of search engine conferences for training workshops.

But I often wonder if "in-depth training" is the right term for the "radical reorientation" that takes place in these intensive workshops. The small class setting ensures participants that their instructor is accessible for informal one-on-one or small group discussions of "why" as well as "how."

As Columbus discovered, training the crews of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria how to sail west was a relatively straightforward task. The real challenge was convincing Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand that they wouldn't fall off the edge of the world.

Fortunately, the instructors of the SES training workshops are experts who know how to handle both ambidextrously.

So, what can you learn by participating in one of these training workshops?

SES Berlin offers a "Workshopsprogramm" on 23 November, the day before the "kongress." The program includes:
• Link Building 2009 Workshop, which will be taught by Christoph Cemper, General Manager, and Melanie Arko, Project Manager CEMPER.COM.
• Web Analytics Workshop: Data Into Action, which will be taught by Timo Aden, Gründer und Geschäftsführer, Trakken GmbH.
• Best Practices der Suchmaschinenwerbung, which will be taught by Oliver Zenglein, Head of Online Marketing, be2.

Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 offers SEM training on December 10, the day after the conference. The half-day workshops include:
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop, which will be taught by Shari Thurow, Omni Marketing Interactive.
• Landing Page Testing Hands On: Developing Your Action Plan, which will be taught by Tim Ash, SiteTuners.
• Advanced Keyword Research, which will be taught by Ron Jones, Symetri Internet Marketing.
• Social Media and Your Business, which will be taught by Sage Lewis, SageRock.com.

On December 11, SES Chicago 2009 offers partnered training. The full-day workshops include:
• Search Engine Optimization Training, which will be taught by Bruce Clay, Bruce Clay, Inc.
• Integrating Search Across All Online Marketing Efforts, which will be taught by Aaron Kahlow, Chairman & Founder, Online Marketing Summit; Ray "Catfish" Comstock, Senior Search Strategist, BusinessOnLine; Paul Sherman, President Emeritas, Usability Professionals Organization (OMI Professor); Jennifer Wessenmeyer, VP Analytics, Stratigent; Debbie Qaqish, Partner, Pedowitz Group (OMI professor); and Kevin Espinosa, Director eMarketing, Caterpillar.

Next week, we'll look at more reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, just keep singing "nine trainers training, eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 9, 2009, 2:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Caution: Social Media May Be Closer Than They Appear

I've just finished attending Day 1 of the PRSA International Conference in San Diego.

Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, was the Sunday keynote speaker.

Katie D. Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners, discussed Social Media Measurement: Establishing ROI.

And Peter Himler, founder and principal of Flatiron Communications, Rick Clancy, former senior vice president of corporate communication at Sony Electronics, Jessica Smith, Vice President of Fleishman-Hillard, Rob Key, founder and CEO of Converseon, and Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, participated on a panel entitled, "Looking Ahead: The Nexus of Social Media and Public Relations."

If PR people seem to be very interested in social media, they are. But they aren't alone. Search engine optimizers have been interested in social media for five years. And customer relations management is interested in social media, too.

Now, blogs started taking off in 2003. Facebook was launched in 2004. YouTube was launched in 2005. And Twitter was launched in 2006.

So, maybe we should cut many PR people some slack for waiting until 2009 to get their arms around social media. But life is unfair -- and PR people who waited until now will find themselves saying, "Hey, that's my job," to other people in other departments who didn't wait to get started.

Now, PR people bring a lot of relevant skills to the social media table, but so do SEOs and customer relations people. All this will generate some interesting discussions when it comes time to launch a company's first social media campaign.

I remember similar discussions in the mid-1990s, when I tried to make the case at my old employer that the corporate communications department should be responsible for creating the company's first website. I lost that argument -- and the IT department was put in charge of creating a new way to interact with "the public" online. The result was a website that wasn't user friendly -- and it used a content management system that wasn't search engine friendly, either.

So, we face another one of those pivotal moments when PR people will be asked why social media is important, how social media works, and which social media to use.

They need to be read with answers now, not next year. Anyone who looks at social media through the passenger side mirror needs to be cautioned: Social media may be closer than they appear.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 8, 2009, 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

5 Google Updates for 11/6/09: News, Maps, Books, Music and Mobile

It's the end of another eventful week in search blogging, and once again there are several Google updates just piled up waiting to be written about. So, we're saving everyone some time and just compiling them into one post. Check them out:

Google News has a new sitemaps interface. You have six months to adopt the new sitemap.

Google Books now has a magazine search page.

Via Google Search's new music search, you can now access exclusive songs hosted by MySpace and Lala for artists such as Lady Gaga and Arctic Monkeys.

Google Maps has released imagery of Berlin from 1945 to 1953.

The Google Mobile App is now available at Best Buy (still free, which is the ultimate "best buy").

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 6, 2009, 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

PRSA 2009 International Conference Features Two Online Marketing Heroes

I'll by flying to San Diego this weekend to speak at the PRSA 2009 International Conference next week. Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and a member of the SES Advisory Board, will also be speaking at the annual Public Relations Society of America event.

Odden is speaking on Monday, November 9, at 10:15 a.m. about "Help Google Find Your Releases: Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Tactics for Public Relations Professionals."

Nine out of 10 journalists, reporters and editors use search engines to do their jobs, according to a recent survey by TopRank Online Marketing. In this environment, public relations professionals must understand the ins and outs of search engine optimization (SEO).

So, Odden will help PR people find out how to choose the best key words, optimize their newsroom and press releases, build better links, and sell SEO to decision makers. Plus, he'll share "the No. 1 SEO tactic to implement today."

I'll be speaking on Tuesday, November 10, at 11:15 a.m. with Laura Sturaitis, the senior vice president, media and product services, at Business Wire.

How do you know your press release delivers value? Are there ways to increase a press releases' ROI?

Sturaitis and I will discuss real live examples and techniques to get the most mileage for press releases, especially in the Web 2.0 world. We'll explain why PR people need to work hand-in-hand with their Web team to see how visitors are getting to their site and moving through it. We'll also examine Web analytics for compiling, tracking and measuring activity deriving from the press release via the wires and elsewhere.

If you want a preview, check out my post on the ComPRrehension blog, which is entitled, "Does Your Press Release Deliver Value?"

Odden and I also spoke last year at the PRSA 2008 International Conference in Detroit. Why is this useful information for search engine optimizers to share with their colleagues down the hall in the public relations department? SEO specialists and PR specialists need to work together to handle the opportunities and threats created by Google universal search.

When Google announced universal search in May 2007, Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google, said, "The ultimate goal of universal search is to break down the silos of information that exist on the web and provide the very best answer every time a user enters a query."

This radically changed everything we knew about search engine optimization (SEO) and public relations (PR). If your webmaster isn't optimizing content for YouTube, Google News, or Google Images, then who is?

With more than 12.8 billion expanded search queries a month on Google Sites in the U.S., this isn't a rhetorical question. In other words, the SEO specialists and PR specialists need to get out of their silos to ensure that their organization is getting found in all the right places.

As I told Michael Miller, the author of "Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus," back in 2008, "For a good part of the 20th century, every part of the marketing mix was in a different silo. Advertising had its lingo and its metrics, and PR had its lingo and its metrics, and if you had a group that was focused on trade shows and events, they had their lingo and their metrics, etcetera. One of the things that is sort of a byproduct of keeping people in their silos is that things that the email marketing people learned ten years ago, or the search engine marketing people earned five years ago, the PR people in the same organization haven't learned yet. As a result, they keep doing what used to work but stopped working a long time ago, only nobody noticed."

I added, "To the extent that you can get the PR people interacting with the search people, they will discover that there are lots of things they can do together."

And Odden was also interviewed for Miller's book. So, your PR people will be getting the same advice no matter which online marketing guru they listen to at the PRSA 2009 International Conference -- or which chapter of Miller's book they read.

Odden and I both spoke at SES London 2008. Check out my video interview with him below.

Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing, at SES London 2008

And Odden and I are both speaking at SES Chicago 2009. So, there's no escaping our combined message: Get out of your silo; start interacting with other members of your marketing team.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 6, 2009, 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Google AdWords Updates Conversion Tracking Options

Google AdWords has updated the interface for Conversion Tracking. There are three tabs to manage data: Conversions, Webpages, and Code.

Conversions

Under this tab, you'll view details about the conversion actions you're tracking. The "Tracking Status" column shows whether those actions are being tracked properly. The "Value" column displays the accumulated value of the conversion actions. This is based on the value you assign to each action. Use the "New Conversion" button to set up the conversion actions to be tracked. These can also be imported from Google Analytics.

Webpages

Under this tab, you can view which web pages on your site are converting. You'll see the same columns you see under the Conversions tab (Tracking Status, Value, Conversions per click). This can help you identify poorly performing pages.

Code

Under this tab, grab the tracking code for each conversion. You can change the value of an action here too, which aids in ROI calculations.

What do you think of this Google AdWords update? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 6, 2009, 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

AOL Completes Financial Team, Names Additional Board Member in Advance

In preparation for being spun off from Time Warner, AOL has hired executives to their financial team and announced one additional board member.

Here's a list of the financial execs:

• Mike Suffredini - Vice President and Treasurer
• Eoin Ryan - Vice President of Investor Relations
• Don Neff, currently a Senior Vice President of Finance, will become Senior Vice President of Internal Audit.
• Ned Brody - rejoining the company as Executive Vice President of Paid Services

Meanwhile, Susan Lyne, Chief Executive Officer of the online luxury retailer Gilt Groupe, Inc. has been named to the Board of Directors. Last week, AOL named nine board members for the post-separation operations.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 6, 2009, 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Click Forensics Unveils Online Audience Verification Platform for Shopping Engines

At ad:tech New York this week, Click Forensics unveiled a new online audience verification platform for comparison shopping search engines. The technology evaluates traffic to determine its value to merchant partners.

"Comparison shopping engines and other content aggregators need a simple way to optimize the money they spend on search engine marketing, while improving the quality of leads they send on to merchant partners," said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. "The solution we're delivering does just that. To our knowledge, it's the only system available that provides the ability for content aggregators to manage traffic acquisition and traffic monetization in a single interface."

Features include:

• High-Volume Campaign Support - measures the quality of tens of millions of clicks, which supports the increase in demand during high traffic seasons.
• Real-Time Quality-based Filtering - prevents fraudulent and low-quality traffic from reaching merchants, which aids in optimizing ad spend.
• API Integration - allows integration of the platform directly with existing internal reporting and billing systems.
• Browser-based Reporting - enables viewing of traffic and audience quality statistics in a browser-based dashboard.

Ultimately, Click Forensics hopes their new platform will help shopping search engines maintain and grow their merchant partner base.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 6, 2009, 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It May Be The Queen's English, But Google Likes US Results in the UK

As a post at Paul Carpenter's blog notes Google seems to have a preference for US site listings for people searching from the UK. This situation has been discussed before (examples can be found here and here) - and there is even a video from Matt Cutts in the blog post.

There are even US sites in the Google Maps listed for UK based searches.

This is not too much of a stretch given Google's history of problems with languages. BlogScoped pointed out one of many examples where all 10 results for a French search list pages from one site. Seems in Google's world it is the President's language.

Posted by Frank Watson on November 6, 2009, 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Launches Closure Tools: A Javascript Candy Store

The Google Code blog announced the launch of a compiler, library, inspector and templates for sites to use to improve their javascript usage. The tools were "all started as 20% projects and hundreds of Googlers have contributed thousands of patches."

This central open source of all things javascript should prove very handy to web site owners and developers, as many of them are already being used by Google apps and widgets.

"Today, each Closure Tool has grown to be a key part of the JavaScript infrastructure behind web apps at Google. That's why we're particularly excited (and humbled) to open source them to encourage and support web development outside Google."

If the tools become widely adopted it could also help create a uniformity in code use that would help the search engine - but also the wbe community in general.

Posted by Frank Watson on November 5, 2009, 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Twitter Rolls Out Retweet Test [Screenshots]

Back in August, Twitter said it was developing a system of officially bringing the Retweet to the social network. Now, they're unrolling the test to a limited group of users.

Retweeting is quite simple. When you see a Tweet you want to retweet, simply mouseover the lower right corner of the Tweet. Then, click the "retweet" link.

When the Retweeting is done, a simple notification appears underneath the Tweet. You stay right where you are on the page and can continue checking your feed.

Here's what your Retweet looks like. And this is key for the feature we'll discuss just after the image.

But there's a feature of this new Retweeting integration that I don't like. When one of your followers Retweets something, the original Tweet appears in your stream.

In the screenshot below, I don't follow @wyattla. Nothing against him, I just have no idea who he is. One of the people I do followed Retweeted @wyattla's Retweet. But @wyattla's avatar and original Tweet appear in my stream.

Should the test prove successful, I suppose we'll all get used to those little grey Retweet indicators. But call me old-school, I still prefer the "traditional" method of Retweeting, where the Retweeter's Retweet appears in the stream.

What do you think of Twitter's Retweet experiment? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 5, 2009, 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Funny or Die Becomes YouTube Partner

Comedy video site Funny or Die is now a YouTube partner. This means you'll be able to access select Funny or Die videos on the largest online video site in the world.

Funny or Die was created by actor and comedian Will Ferrell and screenwriter/director Adam McKay.

Ferrell and McKay have managed to employ the talent of several Hollywood stars in promoting Funny or Die through simply having them appear in a funny video on the site. Natalie Portman, Lindsay Lohan, Zach Galifianakis, Paris Hilton, and Denis Leary have all appeared in Funny or Die videos.

Embedding is disabled on most of the YouTube version of the videos, so you'll still need to grab embed codes from FunnyorDie.com. Only a handful of videos are on the YouTube channel, which seems, thus far, primarily set up to advertise Will Ferrell's HBO special on DVD.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 5, 2009, 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google AdSense Launches New Interface Into Beta

Google AdSense has launched a new interface that is currently in beta testing. But they're giving a glimpse of it over on the Inside AdSense blog.

Here's what to expect:

• More detailed performance reports
• View daily stats as graphs
• New metrics including amount you've earned from various ad, targeting and bid types
• Enhanced Ad Review Center
• Streamlining common tasks. For example, changing several ad units simultaneously

Here's a screenshot, per the AdSense blog:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 5, 2009, 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Music Search Wars: Yahoo! Goes for Music Video Search Supremacy

It's no secret that music searches comprise a large number of searches on the web today. That's why the music search wars have heated up in recent weeks with rumors and announcements surrounding efforts by Google, Facebook, and MySpace.

Yahoo! has been a player in music search for a long time, but now they're amping up their game with music video search. They're including a special section on the left sidebar to help you filter results.

This seems to only happen with artists and bands of a certain popularity. You can see the left sidebar filter for U2, Foo Fighters and Coldplay, but not for Paramore, Jet or The Swell Season. You get the left rail for Frank Sinatra but not Dean Martin.

The left rail contains albums and songs. Click on one to see videos related to your selection.

What do you think of Yahoo! Music Video search? Let us know in the comment section below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 5, 2009, 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Dashboard Aims to Alleviate Privacy Fears by Showing Data Collection

Google has released a new product called Google Dashboard. This allows users to see what data has been collected on an account associated with a number of Google products. So, if you use GMail, YouTube, and Reader on the same account, you'll see the data collected for each service.

You can check the data collected for your Google account at Google.com/dashboard. You'll have to sign in, even if you're already signed into your Google account. Also, it can take several seconds to load all of the data - and while 20 products are available to view in Google Dashboard, not all of Google's services are included just yet.

To learn more, check out this video:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 5, 2009, 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Google Launches Commerce Search for Online Stores

Google has announced the availability of Commerce Search. It's a search engine that e-commerce sites can place on their sites, effectively leveraging Google Search for their product offerings.

Commerce Search is cloud-based, meaning that Google hosts it. This removes the burden of hosting commerce search by e-commerce companies, which can be useful to avoid problems associated with spikes of traffic - such as the holidays.

Commerce Search is not free. You must contact a sales rep to get started.

There are three upcoming webinars to learn more about Commerce Search. They are:

November 12, 2009 (12 PM PST) Sign Up

November 17, 2009 (8 AM PST) Sign Up

December 3, 2009 (10 AM PST) Sign Up

In the meantime, check out this video about Commerce Search that Google put together:

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 5, 2009, 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Digg Trends: Experimenting with Users Choosing Homepage Stories

Ok, so technically Digg users do choose homepage stories by voting up submitted links. But Digg Trends is an experiment in being a little more explicit.

Users who see the test might see a submitted story at the top of their screen. Their will be a countdown clock, showing how long until a story is set to appear on the homepage. The user can say whether or not they think the story belongs on the homepage. Here's a screenshot per the official Digg blog:

Digg has set up a Twitter account for the experiment. Follow @digg_trends to see which stories are trending.

What do you think of the Digg Trends experiment? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 4, 2009, 3:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google News Offers Customization via New Sections

Alex Chitu over at Google Operating System noticed a new feature in Google News. Look to the top right corner and you'll see a link for "Add a section."

Clicking on "Add a section" takes you to a directory of news sections that you can use to customize your Google News experience.

Update: You can also create your own sections and either keep it private or make it available for public consumption. Here's how you do it: First, click the "Create your own section" button in the right sidebar (when you're on a sections page):

On the next page, choose a title for your section and then add relevant keywords. As you do, news related to those keywords will appear on the right. This will help you know if you're choosing the right keywords. Finish filling out the form. If you check the box for public view, you'll need to add a description and select a category.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 4, 2009, 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Updates Friend Connect to Match Up Content, Ads with Uses Interests

Google has released updates to Friend Connect that will help the tool be more, um, friendly to both web developers and their site visitors. They're using the interests that users note in their profiles to help deliver a more personalized experience.

Custom newsletters - Friend Connect now offers newsletters. You can select to send them to your entire Friend Connect audience - or send newsletters according to interest.

Google Ads - If you have AdSense on your site, Google Friend Connect will now use the interests of a Friend Connect visitor to help serve up more relevant ads.

Personalized Content Gadget - Google will use, once again, user interests to show content throughout your site that's relevant to those interests.

What do you think of these Google Friend Connect updates? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 4, 2009, 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

AOL Ad Revenues Decline by 18% in Q3 2009

Time Warner has reported its earnings for the third quarter of 2009 and the news isn't so pretty for AOL. Overall revenues declined 23% to $777 million.

The decline resulted from an 18% decrease in advertising revenues as well as a 29% decline in subscription revenues. Time Warner said the decline in ad revenues was due to lower paid search and display ads on AOL Media, reduced ad sales on third party sites and foreign exchange rates.

AOL averaged 102 million U.S. unique visitors per month and 44 billion domestic page views, which translates to 144 pages per unique visitor.

Last spring, Time Warner announced plans to spin off AOL. And recently a Board of Directors was named for the soon-to-be-independent company.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 4, 2009, 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for Eight Days A-Learning

During the past seven weeks, I've shared seven compelling reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are "seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

This week, I'll share an eighth great reason -- and it isn't "eight maids a-milking."

You should attend these events for "eight days a-learning."

SES Berlin starts on 23 November with one day of "workshop" and continues 24 and 25 November with two days of "kongress." Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 runs December 7 through 11. It starts with three days of conference sessions, which are followed by two days of training.

If you think no one can possibly cram eight days of learning into two events a couple of weeks apart, you'd be wrong. Andy Atkins-Kruger, Mike Grehan, Bill Hunt, Motoko Hunt, Anne Kennedy and Richard Zwicky, among others, will be at Search Engine Strategies Berlin and SES Chicago 2009.

Yes, yes, these road warriors are speaking at both events. But when they aren't speaking, they'll be sitting in other conference sessions learning. That's one of the secrets of their success. In fact, they'll learn more in eight days than many of us will learn in a year.

That's why I like interviewing well-traveled people for the SES Conference Expo's channel on YouTube. It's like interviewing the philosophers in The School of Athens, one of the most famous paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael.

And I know that no one would confuse the Crowne Plaza Berlin City Centre, where Search Engine Strategies Berlin is being held, or the Hilton Chicago, where SES Chicago 2009 is being held, with the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, where The School of Athens decorates one of the walls. And I'm pretty sure that speakers at these two events won't be walking around wearing togas.

But there is much to learn from the industry's top search experts, including representatives from the search engines themselves. Here are some samples of some of the speakers who you will find walking around these events.

At SES Chicago 2008, Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Andy Atkins-Kruger, the founder of WebCertain. Andy discussed his favorite speaker and also talked about the state of search in Europe for 2009.


Andy Atkins-Kruger, WebCertain, discusses SES Chicago and SES London 2009

At SES San Jose 2009, John Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed Thomas Bindl, CEO of Refined Labs, about SES Berlin 2009. Thomas talked about the history of SES in Germany and says the current speaker line-up is the best the conference has seen so far, including coverage of such topics as social media, PPC, organic, etc.

Thomas Bindl, Refined Labs, previews SES Berlin 2009

At SES San Jose 2009, I interveiwed Mike Grehan, the newly-anointed VP and Global Content Director at SES, SEW, and ClickZ. Mike talked about the search world's attempted transition into social media, and the challenges this poses for traditional search engine marketers and organic search engine optimization professionals.

Mike Grehan, the new VP and Global Content Director, ties social media to search, SES San Jose 2009

At SES San Jose 2008, I interviewed Bill Hunt about his new book, Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web site. Bill will be the keynote speaker at SES Berlin 2009.

Greg Jarboe interviews Bill Hunt about his new book

At SES London 2009, I interviewed Motoko Hunt, founder of AJPR, LLC, about mobile search. Motoko saids mobile search is exploding in Asia, with the creation of the mobile web back in 1999.

Motoko Hunt, AJPR, LLC previews mobile search panel at SES London 2009

At SES London 2009, I interviewed Anne Kennedy, Managing Partner & Founder, Beyond Ink, about search getting "all the credit." Anne said the clicks are there and we know that different people come from different places in their buying cycles.

Anne Kennedy, Beyond Ink, on the importance of search at SES London 2009

At SES San Jose 2009, John Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed Matt McGowan, VP Publishing, Incisive Media, about upcoming SES shows at Chicago and Berlin. Matt says after having SES shows in various cities in Germany, including Hamburg and Munich, it was time to schedule one in Berlin.

Matt McGowan, VP Publishing, Incisive Media previews SES Chicago and Berlin '09

And at SES San Jose 2008, Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Richard Zwicky of Enquisite, about click fraud. Richard stressed the importance that ad networks place on users to file claims whenever they have identfied network errors and/or possible fraud.

Richard Zwicky, Enquisite, discusses click fraud

Next week, we'll look at more reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, just keep singing "eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe on November 4, 2009, 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Twitter Now Habla Espanol

Twitter is now available in Spanish. My rudimentary Spanish skills were able to detect this announcement posted on the Twitter blog - and yes, in Espanol. Ok, it helped that I saw the headline in English before I read the news in my RSS reader, but I digress.

I could deduct from the official Twitter post that they were very grateful to their translation volunteers for helping them to push out this update.

Also, if you go to your Settings link on Twitter.com, look for the language menu and select Spanish if you want this update.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 4, 2009, 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

MSN Redesign Relies on Structured Data from Bing

After looking pretty much the same for almost a decade, one of the top three internet starting points is finally getting a facelift. MSN is debuting its new look, which you can preview here, and Bing is playing a central role in the overhaul - though it won't always be so obvious to the user.

MSN will be relying on structured data gathered from Bing to inform content featured on the new homepage. This includes new modules for local news and all of MSN's shopping will be powered by Bing. MSN will also rely on data about what people are searching for to publish timely content across their network.

Currently, MSN drives 45% of Bing's traffic. Time spent on content, such as the type MSN provides, has grown 24% since 2003. Considering that the other two of the top three internet starting points are Yahoo! and AOL, which have redesigned in the past year, it's no surprise that MSN wants to hang out at the top - and leverage that position to drive Bing's growth. MSN experiences 100 million U.S. users per month, and has grown by 10 million in the past year alone.

One of the reasons content is so hot is due to social networking. MSN is integrating a social module into the redesign, where users will able to access their Facebook and Twitter feeds. This is part of a strategy to make MSN an "information dashboard for your life" for its users. (Sounds kind of similar to Yahoo!'s lastest Y!ou marketing campaign to get users to make Yahoo! their "home on the web.")

Of course, social integration also makes sense when you consider Microsoft's search partnership with Facebook< and it's recent announcement to integrate Twitter into Bing search results.

Cosmetically, MSN is switching from a blue background to white. There are dashes of color, reminiscent of the new Zune software, which is quite slick. The navigation has been de-cluttered, with 50% fewer links.

MSN Homepage

MSN Local Edition

Facebook integration

What do you think of MSN's new look and strategy? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 4, 2009, 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Digging into Google Analytics for Mobile Applications

Last week, Google Analytics expanded to offer reporting features for mobile applications on the iPhone and Android. But how does it work for mobile applications (or parts of mobile apps) that don't render HTML pages?

Google says mobile app developers can tell Google Analytics what actions taken by users would trigger the analytics tracking. Google uses those triggers to determine views, session lengths, and bounce rates.

Developers can also use Event Tracking to track actions such as watching a video, clicking a button or conducting a download.

The data provided by Google Analytics for mobile apps can be highly useful for developers as they choose to enhance and update their apps over time. It can also inform future app development by helping developers meet customer needs and desires.

Check out this video on how online real estate brokerage Redfin used Google Analytics to track their mobile application.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 3, 2009, 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google AdWords Launches Ad Sitelinks

Google is introducing sitelinks to AdWords. If you're not familiar, sitelinks are links to pages deeper on a website. We've seen them in organic results for quite awhile.

Ad Sitelinks are only being launched to advertisers that meet a high-quality threshold. If your account qualifies, go to your Campaign Settings Tab, then to the "Ad extensions" section. Look for "Show additional links to my site."

Here's a sample ad provided by the Inside AdWords blog (click to enlarge):

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 3, 2009, 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Bing Ships New Imagery to Maps

Bing has released new imagery on maps. The new release features high-resolution imagery - 15-30 centimeter - for the US, Canada and the UK. One of the biggest imagery updates? Vancouver - home to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

It looks pretty good...

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 3, 2009, 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Related Links Returns - to Labs

Google is bringing Related Links back, but in limited fashion. You can demo the tool, but if you want complete access, you need to request an invitation to the Labs version by sending an email to relatedlinks@google.com.

What Related Links does is find similar links to a URL that you enter. I demo-ed the tool using my last blog post, about new Google AdWords templates.

Here's what happened.

I wouldn't say the list of related links is the best. You could do a search in Google for "site:http://blog.searchenginewatch.com display ad builder" and come up with better results. But I guess that's why it's in Labs. It will be interesting to see if it improves.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 3, 2009, 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google AdWords Unveils Holiday-Themed Templates for Display Ad Builder

The holiday season is upon us and Google AdWords wants to help you get your display ads ready. They've just released new holiday-themed templates for Display Ad Builder. Here are some examples:

Google launched Display Ad Builder a year ago and have been adding templates ever since.

Still not convinced that display ads are a viable marketing option? There's plenty of data to show that display advertising gives search a lift.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 3, 2009, 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bing Mobile App Available for BlackBerry Storm

On the heels of releasing a more optimized mobile browser search experience, Bing is now releasing its mobile app for Verizon BlackBerry Storm users.

Updates include:

• Map Your Way quick access to maps, driving directions and traffic information, plus an improved auto-locate feature.
• Quick Answers save favorite searches on a customizable mobile homepage.
• Act Locally quickly find information on local businesses.
• Type Less, Search More voice search feature.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 3, 2009, 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Gets Patent For Search Results Based on Query, Click Behavior

Bill Slawski reports on a new Google patent that manipulates search results based on query patterns and click results. As Bill explains Google can track when people search for a few related terms and then click on a specific page and develop aggregated information when this action is repeated and give a higher ranking for sites that the group clicks on most often.

Seems like a form of behavioral targeting to me and also gives insight in to how Google is working to take the users' preferences to provide better results. Downside would be that now know people can manipulate this one fairly easily. One wonders if they plan to apply this to Adwords as an addition to their Quality Score or even other advertising mediums.

What it does show is that Google is aggregating search actions and want to use the information, if they are not already. The patent is just making sure the method is theirs.

Posted by Frank Watson on November 3, 2009, 1:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Google Tells FCC Only Restricting Adult Chat, Free Conference Call Lines

In response to claims by ATT that Google Voice were blocking calls, unlike other regulated services that must allow the calls that local carriers chrage high prices for, Google "engineers have developed a tailored solution for restricting calls to specific numbers engaged in what some have called high-cost "traffic pumping" schemes, like adult chat and "free" conference call lines," their Public Policy blog stated.

Bi-partisans from both the Republican and Democratic parties have also called for a probe into the restricted calls.

Google has found that as much as 26% of their expenses for Voice come from a 100 of these "traffic pumping schemes" and called upon the FCC to fix these loop holes that allow companies to make money at the expense of the carriers.

"While we've developed a fix to address this problem, the bottom line is that we still believe the Commission needs to repair our nation's broken carrier compensation system. The current system simply does not serve consumers well and these types of schemes point up the pressing need for reform," Google Telecom and Media Counsel Richard Whitt said.

Posted by Frank Watson on November 3, 2009, 1:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Looking ahead to SES, Chicago.

I've been working on a lot of stuff for SES shows next year. And in between, adding a little this-and-that to SES, Chicago. These shows are planned months and months ahead, so a lot of stuff was already in place. But there are a few new sessions I was keen to squeeze in.

In fact, I had an idea to ask a lot of the session moderators if they would like to contribute to a new channel I set up over at ClickZ called "Conference Call." Basically it's an opportunity for them to give a little more insight to their sessions. And of course, it helps attendees to mark up specific sessions before they get there.

I kicked the thing off myself with a column about some real-time and social search elements I've introduced. This really is taking a look at the future of search and talks a lot about the move toward real time ranking and a shift from searching to "suggested discovery."

There's a link to a very interesting news report from the BBC on YouTube which I highly recommend you take a peek at. It really does help to explain some of the very cool things that are happening in social search right now.

Keep an eye open for some guest blog posts and guest columns at ClickZ running up to the show.

www.searchenginestrategies.com/chicago

Posted by Mike Grehan on November 2, 2009, 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bing Maps Gets Starring Role in Weather.com Futures; National Geographic Digital Archives

Bing Maps is often used by third-party websites who need mapping functions for their various features. Many of these sites started using Bing Maps when it was known as Microsoft Virtual Earth.

Weather.com was one such site. Now, they're innovating with Bing Maps. They've added a new feature called "Futures." This helps visitors to the site see where Weather.com predicts various weather elements may be heading.

Another third-party entity to incorporate Bing Maps is National Geographic. The famed magazine has digitized every issue in 120 years worth of archives and placing it in a 6 DVD set and external hard drive. Bing Maps will let you GeoBrowse the world to find articles relevant to a specific location.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 2, 2009, 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google Search by Voice Expands to Nokia S60s, Mandarin Chinese

Google has expanded its Search by Voice to its mobile search app for Nokia S60 series. The series includes devices such as the N95 and the E71. The update is available for Nokia S60 series device users worldwide.

But users of such devices who speak Mandarin Chinese are getting an extra update. Google has added the language to Search by Voice for the Nokia S60 series phones. Google is working on extending Mandarin Chinese to Search by Voice for additional devices as well as additional accents.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 2, 2009, 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bing for Mobile Adds NFL and Flight Instant Answers, Optimized Touchscreen Experience

Bing has updated their mobile search offering, which can be found at m.bing.com. Included in the update are Instant Answers for NFL players as well as Flight Status.

Also included in the update is an optimized experience for certain touchscreen devices used in the United States. Devices include iPhone, Zune HD, T-Mobile G1, Verizon Imagio, and Samsung Omnia. Additional devices will be added in the future.

The navigation is improved and visual search for movies has been implemented. This might be a rolling update because my iPhone didn't show the updated results shown in the blog. The movie search is still very nice on my iPhone, just not what I saw on the Bing blog. Here's two screenshots. The first one is from the Bing blog, the second one from my iPhone.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 2, 2009, 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Extends Local News to France

Google is now offering Local News in its Google News service for France. This allows the French to access local news when they visit Google News instead of just the standard Google News fare. Local News has already been rolled out in the U.S., U.K., Canada, India and Germany.

To see Local News in any of these countries, look for the local section where you can enter your postal code. If you don't see the section, head to the "Personalize this page" link on the top right corner of the page.

Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 2, 2009, 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

See More Posts From:

This Week | This Month