SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 24, 2007

« Microsoft May Buy 5% Stake In Facebook | Main | Facebook Notification Feeds: Not So Private From Blog Search, After All »

Sep. 24, 2007 at 4:31pm Eastern by Barry Schwartz

SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 24, 2007

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Microsoft May Buy $10 Billion Stake In Facebook
Microsoft Is in Talks To Buy Facebook Stake from the Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft is in talks with Facebook to place a $10 billion stake in the company, giving Microsoft a 5% stake in Facebook. The Wall Street Journal said that Google "also expressed strong interest in a...
Google Releases Conversion Optimizer To Aid AdWords CPA Bidding
Google announced a new AdWords feature to help advertisers automate their bids on their CPA (cost-per-acquisition) ads. Conversion Optimizer is a tool that will look at your costs and conversion goals and automatically change your bid prices based on those metrics. All you need to do is define a maximum...
Google Trends Now Updated Hourly
The Google Blog announced today that Google Trends is now updated every hour. In the past, it was just updated monthly with the latest statistics on searches. If you want to track the latest hot trends by hour, you can subscribe to the hourly Hot Trends Atom Feed or add...
Why I'm Excited About SMX Local & Mobile
Next week we kick off our inaugural SMX Local & Mobile conference in Denver, and it promises to be a killer show. I've programmed dozens of search conferences over the years, and yet this one, which I co-organized with the able and expert help of Greg Sterling, is special. To...
Google Trends: Yellow Pages Will Be Toast In Four Years
Local marketing industry savants have long been predicting the demise of print Yellow Pages books, going the way of the buggy whip due to overwhelming competition from Internet alternatives. Further, the aggressive invasion of search engines into the local space during the past few years has inspired some analysts...
Attention Shopping Sites! Generic Content Means Generic Links
I had the pleasure of participating on a Link Building Clinic at the Shop.org conference in Las Vegas last week. This conference attracts a different crowd than the SEO/SEM related shows in that practically every attendee at a Shop.org show is running a web site that sells something. Now,...
Blyk And MySpace: Will Ad-Subsized Mobile Services Fly?
There is a belief, held by many, that there is a bright future for ad-supported or subsidized mobile services. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has also floated this idea. Now, the long-delayed Blyk in the U.K is live and MySpace in the U.S. has announced an ad-supported model (and a richer...
Google Asks Judge To Deny Boarding To American Airlines Lawsuit
Google seeks dismissal of American Airlines suit from Dallas Business Journal reports that Google has filed a motion to dismiss the American Airlines vs. Google trademark case. In that case, American Airlines sued Google for allowing advertisers to bid on their trademark names. Gary Price located the motion to dismiss...
Google Endings Commission Payments In Europe, Middle East & Africa
Back in September 2005, Google announced an end to commission payments to agencies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, replaced by "Best Practice Funding." That was to me simply still paying commissions, only under a different name and a more standardized pan-European rate. Now even Best Practice Funding is...
Google To Pressure Facebook To "Free" Social Data & Planning Google Earth World?
Two things from the weekend suggest Google may be getting more serious about the social networking threat posed by Facebook. TechCrunch had news that Google is going to open up its social data information, while Google Operating System spotted a post that Google may have plans for a new social...
The Open Directory's Home Page Goes Missing In Google
The Open Directory's home page appears to have gone missing from Google's search results. For example, a search on dmoz (the Open Directory's nickname) does not return the home page in the search results. Here is a screen capture: Similarly, searches for open directory or open directory project also don't...
Google Files For Approval Of DoubleClick Acquisition In Europe
Just as U.S. Congressional hearings on the intended acquisition of DoubleClick are about to begin, a parallel process is potentiality starting in Europe. Reuters reports that Google filed on Friday with the European Commission for approval of its intended $3.1 billion deal....